An Assessment of Various Side-Stick Controller/Stability and Control Augmentation Systems for Night Nap-of-Earth Flight Using Piloted Simulation

A series of piloted simulator experiments was conducted to assess the interactive effects of side-stick controller characteristics and level of stability and control augmentation on attack helicopter handling qualities. Several night nap-of-the-earth mission tasks were evaluated using a helmet-mounted display which provided a limited field-of-view image with superimposed flight control symbology. A wide range of stability and control augmentation designs was investigated. Variations in controller force-deflection characteristics and the number of axes controlled through an integrated side-stick controller were studied. In general, a small displacement controller was preferred over a stiff-stick controller particularly for maneuvering flight. Higher levels of stability augmentation were required for IMC tasks to provide handling qualities comparable to those achieved for the same tasks conducted under simulated visual flight conditions.