The Convair Model 990 and Its “Limit Cycle Oscillation”

Early in the development program of the Convair 990, a flutter problem was uncovered which severely limited the speed of this aircraft. This paper summarizes the work which was accomplished by Convair in the complete solution of the problem. Items covered include the flutter incident itself; ground vibration tests; theoretical analyses; model tests; the required changes; and subsequent flight flutter tests of the production configuration.