Development, Testing and Validation of Transport Category Procedures for the AW609 Tiltrotor

Transport Category Certification requires the ability to safely land or continue flight after an engine failure during all phases of flight. The maximum transport category gross weight is a key parameter that can strongly influence the success of an aircraft. Due to its unique configuration, the tiltrotor offers unique challenges and abilities for surviving an engine failure during its critical mission phase. Challenges include energy management and thrust maintenance for a low inertia, high disk-loading rotor. Unique capabilities include rapid acceleration due to tilting of the thrust vector via the nacelles, which is a powerful method of improving takeoff performance and ground clearance for continued flight after a single engine failure. With its fly by wire flight control system and integrated engine controls architecture, the AW609 offers an unparalleled ability to evaluate, tune, and improve transport category performance, specifically during the critical flight phases of takeoff and landing. This paper will summarize the development and initial evaluation of transport category performance on the AW609 tiltrotor. It includes a brief discussion of the control architecture, a summary of simulation correlation, and a summary of flight test findings.