Rotorcraft flight test automation-the saga continues

The cost associated with the next generation rotorcraft testing, training, and support, using current techniques, promises to escalate in a predicted hostile fiscal environment. Aircraft testing, and the associated training and support, place large demands on flight vehicles, avionics, weapons systems, test teams and scarce fiscal resources. Innovative technology options in the form of case based reasoning, automatic test plan and test report generation, intelligent documents, intelligent interfaces, and test plan rehearsal options can be used to assist flight test plan development, test reporting, and test data analysis. Integrating an enhanced generic structure, physics-based simulation model with the flight test automation software presents an option to run the test analytically while the test plan is being generated. The initial results include the capability to generate a comprehensive rotorcraft test plan, including related lesson learned, in approximately 15 minutes, on a personal computer at the test team work area. If the personal computer is tied into a workstation based comprehensive aircraft simulation program via a network, then selected tests from the test plan flight test matrix can be run analytically to give test team members a preview of what results to expect from the actual flight test