Navy to test carrier landing software

The U.S. Office of Naval Research says select pilots early next year will test new flight control software regarding landings on aircraft carriers.

The software, funded in part by the ONR, is intended to facilitate aircraft landings on Navy carriers with unprecedented accuracy.

"The precision that we can bring to carrier landings in the future will be substantial," said Michael Deitchman, deputy chief of naval research for naval air warfare and weapons. "The flight control algorithm has the potential to alter the next 50 years of how pilots land on carrier decks."
U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps aviators conducting carrier landings line up with a moving flight deck in a complicated process. They must constantly adjust speed and manipulate the aircraft's flight control surfaces -- ailerons, rudders and elevators -- to maintain the proper glide path and alignment to the flight deck for an arrested landing.

Throughout their approach, pilots eye a set of lights -- known as the Fresnel lens -- on the left side of
the ship. It signals whether they are coming in too high or too low.
ONR said the new algorithm in the flight control software augments the landing approach. Coupled with an experimental shipboard light system called a Bedford Array and accompanying cockpit heads-up display symbols, the software ties the movement of the pilot's control stick directly to the aircraft's flight path.

Instead of constantly adjusting the plane's trajectory indirectly through attitude changes, the pilot maneuvers the aircraft to project a dotted green line in the heads-up display over a target light shining in the landing area.

The software has been incorporated into an F/A-18 E/F Super Hornet flight simulator.

Researchers plan to conduct a study with U.S. and British navy pilots who will fly the simulator to obtain data on workload reduction and touchdown performance. Once the results are tabulated, the engineers plan to integrate the refined algorithm onto an actual aircraft for flight tests and demonstrations.