Watt Does It Take To Build A Solar Airplane? Chemistry, of course!

More than ever, the aviation world is facing a huge challenge with the global pilot shortage more on our blog here. An efficient training is consequently needed in order for pilots to perform in an ever crowdier sky and keep the sky safe. Now, what better way to learn than to observe one’s own performances and analyze them to improve constantly? Flight debrief can become a key element of learning provided that it is objective and gives back the reality of the flight. Enhancing pilots’ performances means less risks for take-off, landing and during the flight.

Flight Ascend Consultancy hosted the quarterly Commercial Aviation webinar, where our independent aviation experts discussed the latest commercial aviation industry trends and Consultance Rob has more than twenty five years industry experience as a commercial aviation analyst. Prior to joining Flight Ascend Consultancy in January 2012, Rob was Vice President, Marketing & Analysis at BAE Systems Asset Management.

The approach to human-machine teaming in aerial combat continues to evolve. New concepts often show a shift toward a new class of advanced autonomous wingmen “untethered” from the piloted fighters and bombers in a strike package, along with an array of multirole assets affordable enough to be expended as if they were munitions.

System identification methods are ideally suited for rapidly determining bare-airframe simulation models of fixed-wing and rotorcraft UAVs, since UAV configurations change widely throughout their development process. Also the parameters needed for a physics-based model are often poorly known for UAVs, or the modeling assumptions do to correspond well to the physical characteristics of modern UAV configurations. A full-flight envelope UAV simulation can be obtained from “stitching” together only a few point identification models, obtained from a very limited flight-testing program. This webinar will review the fundamentals of the frequency-response method for UAV aircraft and rotorcraft system identification. Special methods are needed for modern multi-copter or eVTOL configurations with highly redundant controls. Identifications methods and results are illustrated with many recent UAV examples. Particular emphasis is given to the important role of system identification in UAV flight control development, implementation verification, and documentation of performance. The course will review key methods, computational tools, and complimentary reference material. The lecture material will be followed by a question and answer period.