Computational Flight Dynamics - Present Status and Directions for the Future

Abstract

The origins of the field of computational flight dynamics can be traced back to the pioneering work by Carroll and Mehra in 1982 in which they introduced the use of bifurcation theory to the analysis of nonlinear aircraft dynamics. In this paper, we focus attention on the field of computational flight dynamics, which includes bifurcation methods, dynamic inversion algorithms, flight simulation, and optimization techniques in the context of aircraft design. We first point out some important developments and achievements in computational flight dynamics over the last several years. Following this, we suggest some areas of ongoing and future research, which may have a serious impact on the aircraft design and development cycle.