The influence of dihedral layout on lateral–directional dynamic stability of the tailless flying wing aircraft is discussed in this paper. A tailless flying wing aircraft with a large aspect ratio is selected as the object of study, and the dihedral angle along the spanwise sections is divided into three segments. The influence of dihedral layouts is studied. Based on the stability derivatives calculated by the vortex lattice method code, the linearized small-disturbance equations of the lateral modes are used to determine the mode dynamic characteristics. By comparing 7056 configurations with different dihedral angle layouts, two groups of stability optimized dihedral layout concepts are created. Flight quality close to Level 2 requirements is achieved in these optimized concepts without any electric stability augmentation system

This study investigates an instability that was observed during high-speed taxi tests of an experimental flying-wing aircraft. In order to resolve the reason of instability and probable solution of it, the instability was reproduced in simulations. An analysis revealed the unique stability characteristics of this aircraft. This aircraft has a rigid connection between the nose wheel steering mechanism and an electric servo, which is different from aircraft with a conventional tricycle landing gear system. The analysis based on simulation results suggests that there are two reasons for the instability. The first reason is a reversal of the lateral velocity of the nose wheel. The second reason is that the moment about the center of gravity created by the lateral friction force from the nose wheel is larger than that from the lateral friction force from the main wheels. These problems were corrected by changing the ground pitch angle. Simulations show that reducing the ground pitch angle can eliminate the instability in high-speed taxi

To find a trajectory with low radar detection probability for stealth aircraft under the assumption of 2D space, performing a rapid turning maneuver is a useful way to reduce the radar detection probability of an aircraft by changing the azimuth angle rapidly to reduce the time of high radar cross-section (RCS) exposure to radar. However, in real flight, not only does the azimuth angle to the radar change rapidly but the elevation angle also changes rapidly, and the change in the radar cross-section is also significant in this process. Based on this premise, this paper established a trajectory planning method based on the sparse A* algorithm in a 3D complex, dynamic environment, called the 3D sparse A* method, based on a log-normal radar model (the 3D-SASLRM method), which considers the RCS statistical uncertainty and the statistical characteristics of the radar signals. Simulations were performed in both simple and complex scenarios. It was concluded that the established 3D-SASLRM method can significantly reduce the radar detection probability. And the essence of reducing under the assumption of 3D space is also to reduce the time of high radar cross-section exposure to radar.

With the consideration of rotation between canopy and payload of parafoil system, a four-degree-of-freedom (4-DOF) longitudinal static model was used to solve parafoil state variables in straight steady flight. The aerodynamic solution of parafoil system was a combination of vortex lattice method (VLM) and engineering estimation method. Based on small disturbance assumption, a 6-DOF linear model that considers canopy additional mass was established with benchmark state calculated by 4-DOF static model. Modal analysis of a dynamic model was used to calculate the stability parameters. This method, which is based on a small disturbance linear model and modal analysis, is high-efficiency to the study of parafoil stability. It is well suited for rapid stability analysis in the preliminary stage of parafoil design. Using this method, this paper shows that longitudinal and lateral stability will both decrease when a steady climbing angle increases. This explains the wavy track of the parafoil observed during climbing

In this paper, two typical stealth aircraft concepts (wing fuselage blended and flying-wing) were designed. Then three gradually changed surface distribution models with the same planform for each concept were created. Based on the multilevel fast multipole algorithm (MLFMA), the vertical polarization transmitting/vertical polarization receiving (VV) and horizontal polarization transmitting/horizontal polarization receiving (HH) radar cross section (RCS) characteristics were simulated with five frequencies between 0.1 and 1.0 GHz. The influences and mechanisms of aircraft surface distribution on electromagnetic scattering characteristics were investigated. The results show that for the wing fuselage blended concept, the VV RCS of this frequency range is higher than the HH RCS in most cases, while it is just the opposite for the flying-wing concept. As for the two aircraft concepts, the RCS levels of HH and VV both decrease with the frequency increasing, but the HH RCS has a faster downward trend. The surface distribution has little influence on HH RCS characteristics. On the contrary, it has a significant impact on VV RCS characteristics, and the amplitude of the VV RCS increases with the surface thickness

Poor lateral-directional flight quality is a critical technical problem in flying wing aircraft design. This paper proposes an approach to achieve lateral-directional dynamic stability of flying wing aircraft. This approach is different from general methods such as installing a wingtip vertical stabilizer or depending on a stability augmentation system. Through directly including the judgment of aircraft dynamic stability into the aerodynamic configuration design, sufficient lateral-directional stability can be guaranteed without relying on other systems. A lateral-directional dynamic stability satisfaction judgment function was built based on MIL-F-8785C. The lateral-directional dynamic stability was improved using only the adjustment of the spanwise dihedral layout. To validate the feasibility of this design method, this study selected a flying wing aircraft with a high aspect ratio as the object. Two optimized configurations with different aerodynamic shape but similar stability characters were...