Handling Qualities Specification Development for Cargo Helicopters

Cargo Helicopter handling qualities specifications are being developed to augment the existing Aeronautical Design Standard for Handling Qualities (ADS-33D). These new cargo helicopter specifications will be comprised of analytical requirements to qualify a design, both prior to and during flight testing, and a series of flight test maneuvers intended to capture the essence of the cargo helicopter mission. This paper documents the effort to compile the flight test maneuver performance standards for day/good visibility flight conditions (Usable Cue Environment, UCE=1). It also describes the ADS-33 quantitative tests which were performed to obtain experience with existing large cargo aircraft. Additionally, the results are used to rank the lest aircraft, the CH-47D, relative to the current ADS-33D boundaries. This effort was cooperatively accomplished by a government/contractor team.