Inflight Measurements in Circling Flight

Abstract

Circling flight is a standard procedure during cross country flight of sailplanes. To optimize the design of sailplanes, fast and robust prediction tools are needed. To validate these tools, data of control surface deflection angles and airflow is highly desired. To gain data for validation, flight tests with the research sailplane Discus-2c DLR were conducted at different bank angles in two flights. For stabilizing the sailplane, the built-in two dimensional experimental autopilot was used. The graphs for each test section are plotted, containing rudder deflections, airflow data and inertial measurements. Averaged datapoints for each bank angle are calculated, to have validation points for steady-state calculations.