Control-Configured General Aviation Aircraft

The concept of designing general aviation aircraft to take advantage of recent advances in control technology is presented. Particular attention is paid to relaxing the inherent static stability requirements of the airframe and assuming that stability can be maintained by the control system. As an example, the longitudinal static stability of a typical twin-engine business aircraft is considered. It is shown that the horizontal tail area can be reduced 60% by considering only longitudinal control requirements. This reduction in tail area leads to improvements in the selected performance parameters of range, rate of climb, and maximum level speed. In addition, it is shown that there is more freedom in center of gravity position with the aft limit determined by control power requirements rather than by the usual static stability requirement.