An Evaluation of General Aviation Aircraft Flying Qualities

The flying qualities of six late-model personal-owner aircraft are generally satisfactory for operation in the visual-flight environment. During instrument flight, particularly in the presence of turbulence, the flying qualities of these aircraft are such that excessive pilot effort is required to perform precise tracking tasks such as instrument landing system approaches. A correlation between pilot workload and stability and control characteristics indicates that improved characteristics would alleviate much of the effort required of the pilot. A method of quantitatively evaluating the effect of individual stability and control characteristics on the pilot workload is needed.