Computational Aircraft and Armament Stability and Control Techniques Applied to the F - 16

This paper documents some of the early results of a three year project to develop a computational method for accurately determining static and dynamic stability and control derivatives of a fighter with various weapons configurations as well as the aircraft response to pilot input. In this first year of the project computational data is gathered for a rigid F-16 with no control surface movement in forced motion that approximates flight test maneuvers and wind-tunnel testing techniques. The data is then post-processed to determine the resulting static and dynamic stability derivatives. Also, data is gathered for static F-16 simulations with various control surface positions and post-processed to determine the control derivatives. Derived stability and control data is then compared to available flight test data to show validity of the method. In addition to the computational results, this first year effort will produce two critical pieces of software to aid in quick simulation of aircraft in these maneuvers: a control surface implementation toolkit and a GUI-based maneuver file generation tool. The current status of these two software elements is reviewed. The main benefits of this effort are: 1) early discovery of complex aerodynamic phenomena that are typically only present in dynamic flight maneuvers and therefore not discovered until flight test, and 2) rapid generation of an accurate aerodynamic database to support aircraft and weapon certification by reducing required flight test hours and complementing current stability and control testing.