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Aviation History
1980
1980 - 1134.PDF
1086 FLIGHT International, S April 1980 air-to-ground evaluation. Fuselage pointing was also found to be useful in ground strafing, raising the mini mum altitude from 200ft to a "more comfortable" 400ft. Direct lift and manoeuvre enhancement improved pull-up response after an attack. Gust alleviation in the Fighter CCV was effective but required improvement. CCV manoeuvres were accomplished without using rudder pedal inputs. The Fighter CCV completed 125hr in 87 flights. It succeeded in demon strating decoupled control of flight path, fuselage pointing and transla tion. For future CCV applications the programme recommended automatic operation, simplified pilot controllers and tailoring of modes to specific operations. That close attention should be paid to the pilot/vehicle interface was a particular recom mendation. Technology is of little use unless it provides a tactical advantage. During the first stage of AFTI/F-16 testing the pilots will evaluate the digital flight control and develop a menu of CCV control laws as they apply to each flying task. Fuselage pointing, for example, is expected to expand the normal 2mil (2/17°) gun aiming pipper into a 3° to 5° gun window. Any target within that window can be hit by invoking the appropriate CCV modes. Before beginning a bombing run the pilot can select direct sideforce for wings-level steering. The entire attack can then be performed with out rolling or banking. This mode was found to be particularly useful dur ing Fighter CCV testing. Simulation has shown wings-level steering to be very effective against helicopters in low-level operations. The AFTI/F-16 will be able to generate up to 2g lateral acceleration compared to 0-8g on the Fighter CCV. A side- force restraint system has been developed. Direct lift will generate 1!2 to 3g vertical acceleration. The integrated flight- and fire- control system will permit a number of offensive manoeuvres previously impossible. When a target is detected by radar or electro-optical sensor, target condition or rate of change of position is assessed. Motion sensors provide the attacking aircraft with accurate knowledge of its own posi tion. It is therefore able to compute the impact point of any weapon selected. Errors between computed impact point and target position generate commands to the flight- control system to close the gap auto matically. As there is a risk that the com puter would pull the wings off the aircraft in its efforts to align with the target, the pilot will select IFFC authority—how much lateral, direc tional and pitch control is allowed to the computer. The pilot will also be able to select which axis or axes are under automatic control. While re taining control of aircraft pitch atti- Fuselage pointing (up to 5° from the flight path) and direct sideforce control (up to 2g laterally) will expand the first-pass attack area from 1 for a conventional aircraft to 2+3 for the AFTI/F-16 tude, for example, the pilot could rely on the computer to remove lateral aiming errors. Unorthodox manoeuvres possible with IFFC include non-wings-level weapons release and acceleration in three dimensions. To strike a target, free-fall weapons have to be released at a particular point in space. The exact position is a function of velo city, height and range. Normally the aircraft is required to fly wings-level to measure these quantities and re lease the weapon. This entails over flying the target—which may be heavily defended. With continuous knowledge of air craft velocity vector, and target slant range obtained from a radar or electro-optical sensor, the IFFC is able to guide the AFTI/F-16 to the required release point. While the pilot guides the aircraft in one plane, the automatic control system ensures that the weapon ballistic equation is fulfilled and will automatically re lease the bomb when all conditions are satisfied. This opens up the possibility of releasing weapons while in a turn, thus avoiding overflying the target. If the pilot approaches the target too high, the flight-control system would automatically snowplough the canards to slow the aircraft and simultaneous ly delay weapon release to avoid "throwing" the bomb too far. If the pilot does not want to get too close to a particularly hostile target, the IFFC would optimise release height or speed in order to strike the target from greater range. The target re lease points, therefore, become a series of domes around the target. Three-dimensional acceleration will confuse existing anti-aircraft artillery (AAA) systems, such as the Soviet ZSU-23/4, which use a linear predic tor to calculate the target lead angle. By enabling the aircraft to fly a curved path, the IFFC will confuse the first order prediction of aircraft position. The AFTI/F-16 is expected to be able to keep outside the dis persion pattern of AAA systems. The unorthodox flight attitudes possible with CCV are also expected to increase the target area which can be covered in a first pass, giving the aircraft greater flexibility of attack direction. The magnitude of some of these effects has yet to be fully assessed, hence the emphasis on tac tical evaluation of the AFTI/F-16. Manual implementation of CCV flight modes did, however, show consider able promise in the limited Fighter CCV programme. It can be expected that automated operation of six degree-of-freedom flight will show marked benefits in accuracy and survivability. C Intake-mounted canards reinforce the F-16's fish-like appearance. In I25hr of flight-testing the Fighter CCV YF-16 demonstrated the tactical advantages of some unorthodox flight manoeuvres
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