Flight test instrumentation
Encyclopedia
Flight test instrumentation (FTI) is monitoring and recording equipment fitted to aircraft during flight test
. It is mainly used on experimental aircraft
, prototype aircraft and development aircraft - both military and civil, and can monitor various parameters from the temperatures of specific components to the speed of the engines. This may be displayed in the cockpit or cabin to allow the aircrew to monitor the aircraft in flight, and is usually recorded to allow the data to be analysed later.
FTI typically monitors between 10 and 120000 parameters - for example temperatures inside the cargo and pressure distribution along the wing. FTI sources could be temperature sensors, pressure probes, voltages, current transducers, potentiometers, strain gauges, aircraft data buses or cameras. These sensors may be digitalized and acquired by the data acquisition
system. A cockpit audio recording may also be included. A telemetry transmitter may be added to the FTI to allow real-time monitoring of the tests from a ground-station.
Flight test
Flight test is a branch of aeronautical engineering that develops and gathers data during flight of an aircraft and then analyzes the data to evaluate the flight characteristics of the aircraft and validate its design, including safety aspects...
. It is mainly used on experimental aircraft
Experimental aircraft
An experimental aircraft is an aircraft that has not yet been fully proven in flight. Often, this implies that new aerospace technologies are being tested on the aircraft, though the label is more broad....
, prototype aircraft and development aircraft - both military and civil, and can monitor various parameters from the temperatures of specific components to the speed of the engines. This may be displayed in the cockpit or cabin to allow the aircrew to monitor the aircraft in flight, and is usually recorded to allow the data to be analysed later.
FTI typically monitors between 10 and 120000 parameters - for example temperatures inside the cargo and pressure distribution along the wing. FTI sources could be temperature sensors, pressure probes, voltages, current transducers, potentiometers, strain gauges, aircraft data buses or cameras. These sensors may be digitalized and acquired by the data acquisition
Data acquisition
Data acquisition is the process of sampling signals that measure real world physical conditions and converting the resulting samples into digital numeric values that can be manipulated by a computer. Data acquisition systems typically convert analog waveforms into digital values for processing...
system. A cockpit audio recording may also be included. A telemetry transmitter may be added to the FTI to allow real-time monitoring of the tests from a ground-station.