Flight Flutter Clearance Of Two And Four Seat General Aviation Airplanes

F. Marulo, Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Napoli “Federico II”, Italy
C. Caruso, Costruzioni Aeronautiche TECNAM, Capua (CE), Italy
R. Conte, Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Napoli “Federico II”, Italy
A. Scaburri, Costruzioni Aeronautiche TECNAM, Capua (CE), Italy

Abstract

The aeroelastic clearance of the Tecnam single-engine P2008 (two-seat) and P2010 (four seat) airplanes is presented with reference to both numerical calculation and flight flutter testing, performed using pilot induced excitation.

The paper shows on overview of the aeroelastic calculation for these airplanes which both employ composite fuselage up to the vertical tail, while wings, stabilator, rudder and landing gear are metallic alloys. The numerical calculations use standard finite element method and doublet lattice unsteady aerodynamics. The numerical model has been used for simulation of the pilot induced oscillation in order to better select position of the sensors and definition of the stick and pedal input.

The paper will show the flight test results obtained from analysis of the time-histories of the accelerations together with the analysis from the numerical model. These results allow a further correlation between the numerical model and the real airplane, including the flight measurements and not only the correlation with the ground vibration tests. The use of onboard data acquisition systems and finite element methods have shown their reliability on these airplanes and the use of “family design” even for small general aviation aircraft is beneficial from the certification point of view.