23rd Congress of International Council of the Aeronautical Sciences, 8-13 September, 2002, Toronto, Canada
Paper ICAS 2002-5.2.2

A LOW COST FLIGHT TEST INSTRUMENTATION PACKAGE FOR LIGHT AIRPLANES

B. Eggleston, W. D. Mckinney, N. C. Choi, D. Min
CASI, Canada

Keywords: dgps, flight test, instrumentation, laser rangefinder, performance.

The advent of inexpensive DGPS and portable computers enables small aircraft manufacturers to achieve improved flight test efficiency and accuracy when measuring aircraft performance. Furthermore such equipment enables the takeoff performance of floatplanes to be measured which is important for Found Aircraft of Canada. Found has developed a low cost flight test instrumentation package based on DGPS measurements for deriving distance, height and ground speeds. To verify the accuracy of the DGPS height measurements during airfield performance testing, a laser rangefinder system was incorporated. This paper describes the development and features of the instrumentation package and some flight test results are provided. It is also shown that aircraft accelerations can be derived from DGPS data, thereby reducing the need for accelerometers.

view full paper