HELICOPTER ACTIVE CONTROL TECHNOLOGY HANDLING QUALITIES SIMULATOR DEVELOPMENT

The Helicopter Active Control Technology (HACT) program was undertaken by the U.S. Army Aviation Applied Technology Directorate (AATD), located in Ft. Eustis, Virginia, and the Boeing Company to flight demonstrate the benefits of advanced flight control technologies to improve rotorcraft control, handling qualities and mission task effectiveness. Boeing selected the AH-64D as the HACT platform to demonstrate the improvement in mission effectiveness offered by implementing the HACT Task Tailored Control Law and Carefree Maneuvering functional requirements. Boeing employed a combination of simulation environments to eliminate much of the technical risk associated with the introduction of new Flight Control Systems (FCS) and control law technology during development of the HACT FCS (HFCS). This paper will describe the low latency, moving base simulator, located at the Boeing Philadelphia, Pennsylvania facility, which was used for piloted handling qualities assessments and flight control law rapid prototyping.