Lateral and Directional stability

Dihedral effect - Lateral control - Coupling between

rolling and yawing moments - Adverse yaw effects -
Aileron reversal - Static directional stability - Weather
cocking effect - Rudder requirements - One engine
inoperative condition - Rudder lock
Damped oscillation Divergent oscillation
Undamped oscillation Subsidance
Divergence Neutral stability
Case Statically stable Dynamically stable
Damped oscillation Yes Yes
Divergent oscillation Yes No
Undamped oscillation Yes No
Subsidence Yes Yes
Divergence No No
Neutral Stability No No
Where do we stand?
 Lateral Stability
• Stability in Roll
• w/o Directional stability
 Slip
• Forward slip
– The forward slip will change the heading of the
aircraft away from the down wing, while retaining
the original flight path of the aircraft
• Sideslip
– The airplane's longitudinal axis remains parallel to
the original flightpath, but the airplane no longer
flies straight along its original track. Now, the
horizontal component of lift forces the airplane to
move sideways.
 Sideslip
• Phenomenon due to unbalanced sideforce
• Flying in a slip is aerodynamically inefficient
• In a slip much more drag is created
• However if a cross wind is present an appropriate
side slip may be necessary at touchdown.
• A sideslip is also one of the methods used by
pilots to execute a crosswind landing while the
other two are Crab and De-crab
Angle of Sideslip(β)[ITF θ]
 Dihedral angle
• Dihedral angle is the
upward angle from
horizontal of the wings
or tail plane of a fixed-
wing aircraft.
Dihedral
 Dihedral effect
• Dihedral effect is the amount of roll moment
produced per degree (or radian) of sideslip.
• Dihedral effect of an aircraft is a rolling
moment resulting from the vehicle having a
non-zero angle of sideslip. Increasing the
dihedral angle of an aircraft increases the
dihedral effect on it.
• Hence Dihedral effect α Dihedral angle
Other Aircraft Parameters Affecting Dihedral
effect
• Wing sweep
• Vertical location of center of gravity
• The height and size of anything on an aircraft
that changes its sidewards force as sideslip
changes.
 Keel effect
• Keel effect is the result of the sideforce-generating surfaces being above or below the center
of gravity in any aircraft.
• Examples of such surfaces are the vertical stabilizer, rudder, and parts of the fuselage. When
an aircraft is in a sideslip, these surfaces generate sidewards lift forces. If the surface is above
or below the center of gravity, the sidewards lift forces generate a rolling moment. This
"rolling moment caused by sideslip" is "dihedral effect". Keel effect is the contribution of
these side forces to rolling moment (as sideslip increases), i.e. keel effect is the contribution
of the side forces to dihedral effect. Sideforce producing surfaces above the center of gravity
will increase dihedral effect, while sideforce producing surfaces below the center of gravity
will decrease dihedral effect.
• Increased dihedral effect (helped or hindered by keel effect) results in a greater tendency for
the aircraft to return to level flight when the aircraft is put into a bank. Or, reduces the
tendency to diverge to a greater bank angle when the aircraft starts wings-level.
• Keel effect is also called "Pendulum Effect" because a lower center of gravity increases the
effect of sideways forces (above the center of gravity) in producing a rolling moment. This is
because the moment arm is longer, not because of gravitational forces. A low center of
gravity is like a pendulum (which has a very low center of gravity).
 Coordinated Flight
• Coordinated flight of an aircraft is flight without
sideslip.
• When an aircraft is flying with zero sideslip a turn and
bank indicator installed on the aircraft’s instrument
panel usually shows the ball in the center of the spirit
level. There is no lateral acceleration of the aircraft
and occupants perceive their weight to be acting
straight downwards into their seats.
• Particular care to maintain coordinated flight is
required by the pilot when entering and leaving turns
Turn and Bank indicator
Turn and Bank Indicator with zero slip
 Advantages of Coordinated Flight
• It is more comfortable for the occupants
• It minimizes the drag force on the aircraft
• It causes fuel to be drawn equally from tanks
in both wings
• It minimizes the risk of entering a spin
 Coordinating the turn
• If the pilot were to use only the rudder to initiate a turn in the
air, the airplane would tend to "skid" to the outside of the turn.
• If the pilot were to use only the ailerons to initiate a turn in the
air, the airplane would tend to "slip" towards the lower wing.
• If the pilot were to fail to use the elevator to increase the angle
of attack throughout the turn, the airplane would also tend to
slip towards the lower wing
• However, if the pilot makes appropriate use of the rudder,
ailerons and elevator to enter and leave the turn such that
sideslip and lateral acceleration are zero the airplane will be in
coordinated flight.
 Adverse Yaw
• Adverse yaw is a yaw aircraft movement
opposite to the direction change initiated by a
roll movement. It is a secondary effect of the
application of the ailerons in aircraft. Its cause
and effect can be explained as follows:
• As the outer turn wing moves up, its induced
drag increases; as the opposite inner turn wing
descends, its induced drag decreases. There is a
differential moment drag opposite to the turn.
• There is an additional adverse yaw contribution from a profile drag
imbalance between the upgoing and the downgoing wing.
• The net effect is a tendency to yaw the aircraft in the wrong direction
for the turn.
• According to the diagram, when the control column of an aircraft is
moved to the right, the right aileron is deflected upwards, and the
left aileron is deflected downwards, causing the aircraft to roll to the
right. As the right wing descends, its lift vector, which is
perpendicular to the relative motion, tilts forward and therefore has
a forward component. Conversely, as the left wing moves up, its lift
vector tilts back and therefore has an aft force component. The
fore/aft lift force components on the right and left wings constitute
the adverse yaw moment.
 Minimizing the adverse yaw
Adverse yaw is countered by using the aircraft's rudder to perform a coordinated turn,
however an aircraft designer can reduce the amount of correction required by careful
design of the aircraft. Some methods are common:
General characteristics
• As the induced drag is the major cause to adverse yaw, an important parameter is the
lift coefficient. Lower wing loading and higher minimal speed lead to less adverse yaw.
Yaw stability
• A strong directional stability is the first way to reduce adverse yaw . That means
important vertical tail moment (area and lever arm about gravity center).
Roll spoilers
• On large aircraft where rudder use is inappropriate at high speeds or ailerons are too
small at low speeds, roll spoilers can be used to minimise adverse yaw or increase roll
moment. To function as a lateral control, the spoiler is raised on the down-going wing
(up aileron) and remains retracted on the other wing. The raised spoiler increases the
drag, and so the yaw is in the same direction as the roll.
 Differential deflection ailerons
• Because downwards deflection of an aileron typically
causes more profile drag and induced drag than an
upwards deflection, a simple way of mitigating adverse
yaw would be to rely solely on the upward deflection of
the opposite aileron to cause the aircraft to roll. However,
this would lead to a slow roll rate - and therefore a better
solution is to make a compromise between adverse yaw
and roll rate. This is what occurs in Differential ailerons.
• The down-going aileron moves through a smaller angle
than the up-going aileron, reducing the amount of aileron
drag, and thus reducing the effect of adverse yaw.
Differential deflection ailerons
 Frise ailerons
• Frise ailerons are designed so that when up aileron is applied, some
of the forward edge of the aileron will protrude downward into the
airflow, causing increased drag on this (down-going) wing. This will
counter the drag produced by the other aileron, thus reducing
adverse yaw.
• Unfortunately, as well as reducing adverse yaw, Frise ailerons will
increase the overall drag of the aircraft much more than applying
rudder correction. Therefore they are less popular in aircraft where
minimizing drag is important
• Note : Frise ailerons are primarily designed to reduce roll control
forces. Contrary to the illustration, the aileron leading edge has to be
rounded to prevent flow separation and flutter at negative
deflections. That prevents important differential drag forces.
Frise aileron
 Static Directional Stability
• Stability in the direction of travel
• Categorized into
– Weathercock stability
– Spiral stability
Angle of Yaw and Sideslip
 Weather cocking effect
• Application of the static stability principle to
rotation about the z axis suggests that a stable
airplane should have "weathercock stability
• If an aeroplane is yawed due to a gust of wind,
it’s ability to automatically return to it’s previous
heading depends on the area behind it’s centre
of gravity to produce a restoring force. The
fuselage ahead of the centre of gravity will tend
to produce a force to destabilize the aircraft.
 Spiral stability
• Spiral stability is the airplane's resistance to
spiraling or going into a turn that gets tighter
and tighter A large rudder or vertical fin and a
lack of dihedral can mean the aircraft is
pushed into a turn.
 Rudder requirements
• There are two sections covering tail surface to reflect the fact that there is
an aerodynamic side and a structural side to sizing.
• The size of the tail surfaces depends on the force they have to generate. This
in turn depends on their distance from the centre of gravity and their area.
• In general, the surfaces have to be large enough to control the airplane but
they must not be too large to produce excessive amounts of drag. This
means balancing their size with the length of the tail boom.
• A relatively simple approach will be taken with some “rules of thumbs”
taken from other aircrafts, the idea we shall use is “tail volume coefficient”,
that is a length times an area (a volume) divided by a length times an area
(another volume) to give a non-dimensional number.
• Regard the results as a starting point.Increase the area or the tail boom
length as a result of flight tests.
• The rudder is used to control the direction of
flight as well as keep the aircraft flying straight
if side gusts are encountered.
• A value suggested for the vertical tail
coefficient VV is 0.035
• The value suggested for the elevator tail volume
is 0.5
• The elevator has to balance drag with weight, a
large elevator with a short tail boom will result in
a large amount of drag, making the tail boom
longer will reduce the elevator area but the
weight of the tail boom will start to be a problem.
• A good starting point is a tail boom length about
1/ th the wing span
5
 Remarks
• Highly Maneuverable = Poor Stability
• Highly Stable = Poor Maneuverability
 Longitudinal dihedral
• Longitudinal dihedral is the difference
between the angle of incidence of the wing
and angle of incidence of the horizontal tail.
• Longitudinal dihedral can be meaningfully
identified as the angle between the zero lift
axis of the two surfaces instead of, between
the root chords of the two surfaces i.e. the
wing and the horizontal tail.
Dorsal Fin
Any queries?