Experimental analysis of aircraft directional control effectiveness

Abstract Aircraft directional control effectiveness is analyzed through experiments in wind tunnel. Control surfaces on low aspect ratio lifting surfaces exhibit different lifting capabilities compared to those with high aspect ratio. Such behavior must be carefully considered in the preliminary design phase to avoid any overestimation in size, weight, costs and emissions. Traditional sizing methodologies are based on coupling the effects of the wing planform (e.g. aspect ratio) at low angles of control surface deflection with the effects of wing section (e.g. chord ratio) evaluated on section data in the full range of control surface deflection, so that the non-linear aerodynamics is inherited from 2D data, completely neglecting the different aerodynamic behavior of a low aspect ratio wing at high angles of deflection. To fill this gap, an experimental wind tunnel test campaign on a generic regional turboprop aircraft model with a modular vertical tail with rudder has been performed. Results indicate that the aircraft design methodologies present in public literature underestimate the control surface effectiveness at high angle of deflections by 15% to 25%, leading to an average overestimation of control surface size.