Flight Director For Slung Load Handling - First Experiences on CH53 -

Abstract

This paper describes the concept and the flight test results of flight director for helicopter with slung load. The flight director gives the pilot a convenient aid to effectively damp the load pendulum motion and to allow manoeuvring without exciting oscillatory load modes. Swinging helicopter external slung loads often lead to dangerous situations which not only can result in a total loss of the transported load itself but also can endanger the safety of the helicopter and its crew. The development and flight test results of a demonstrator system on the DLR BO105 are outlined. Further, the architecture of a slungload flight director system for the large cargo helicopter CH53 is described and preliminary flight test results are shown.