WORK CONTINUES ON TILT-ROTOR AIRCRAFT

Calspan has designed and fabricated a major portion of the automatic flight control system for the XV-15 tilt-rotor aircraft under a contract from Bell. Calspan's work on the XV-15 will continue in this year under two separate contracts. One contract calls for ground and flight checkout of the Calspan-designed and built automatic flight control system. Under the second contract, Calspan is investigating modifications that could be made to the XV-15 several years hence to make it adaptable as a handling-qualities research aircraft. The automatic flight-control system developed by Calspan for Bell Helicopter provides the XV-15's pilot with a means for sensing the control forces he is generating on his aircraft. A stability-and-control augmentation system is designed to make the aircrafts response to movements of stick and Rubber pedals easier for the pilot to control by making the aircraft's response to movements of stick and rubber pedals vary with forward speed. The SV-15 is one of the two VTOL tilt- rotor research aircraft that Bell Helicopter is producing under a joint contract with NASA/ Ames and the U.S. Army Air Mobility Research and Development Laboratory. The aircraft will be used to investigate the application of tilt-rotor technology to civilian and military missions. The rotors are mounted at the aircrafts wing tips on power pods that tilt so the aircraft can be flown either as a helicopter with the rotors pointed up, or as an airplane with the rotors converted forward. /ART/

• Corporate Authors:

  Calspan Corporation

  4455 Genesee Street
  Buffalo, NY  United States  14225
• Publication Date: 1977-2

Media Info

• Pagination: p. 7-8
• Serial:
  • Calspan News
  • Issue Number: 16
  • Publisher: Calspan Corporation

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Aircraft; Automatic control; Civil aviation; Experimental vehicles; Flight control systems; Helicopters; Military aircraft; Tiltrotor aircraft; Vehicle design; VTOL aircraft
• Uncontrolled Terms: Aircraft design
• Old TRIS Terms: Experimental aircraft; Response; Xv-15 aircraft
• Subject Areas: Aviation; Design; Vehicles and Equipment;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 00152366
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: Analytic
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: Aug 4 1977 12:00AM