Development and Simulation Testing of High-Speed Tracking MTEs for Rotorcraft Handling Qualities Evaluation

The Vertical Lift Consortium (VLC) project, "Rotorcraft Handling Qualities Requirements for Future Configurations and Missions" is a U.S. Government and industry co-funded research project intended to develop mission task elements (MTEs) to ensure desired handling qualities of high-speed rotorcraft. These new high-speed tasks must fit into the mission-oriented approach already established by ADS-33E-PRF. The work presented in this paper summarized the development and simulation testing of two new tracking MTEs. These tracking MTEs, sum-of-sines (SOS) and discrete, were modified versions of similar tasks flown by fixed-wing aircraft for decades. Four aircraft configurations were used to evaluate the ability of the sum-of-sines and discrete tracking MTEs to identify known handling qualities deficiencies. The results of the evaluation showed the sum-of-sines tracking MTE aligned well with the predicted and assigned levels of handling qualities obtained from ADS-33E-PRF, while the discrete tracking MTE did not. The HQRs obtained from the SOS tracking MTE were well within ±1 HQR of the Depart/Abort and Slalom MTE for each configuration evaluated.