Thanks for Pilotage and ICT_STB.
Yes to ICT_STB. The aim of VHF is some different with the shortening and de-risking of airborne testing through training the flight crew in the flight simulator to get high flight skills or be familiar with the risk avoiding procedure. VFT can substitute to a certain percentage the real test flights by reducing the number of test points to be verified by actual flight trials about "10%-30%". Making assumption, 10 test points should be verified in actual flight test in tradition, but now we can use 7 test points in actual flight to verify the flight quality and to assure the accuracy of the "flight simulator" and use 3 test points in "flight simulator" to verify the flight quality.
I want to quote the issue of "VIRTUAL FLIGHT TEST AS ADVANCED STEP IN AIRCRAFT DEVELOPMENT"
"It was the objective of the experts who have created VFT to make this method part of the verification procedure of military aircraft and qualification. Therefore the national airworthiness authority had to be involved in this process and at the end they had to endorse VFT as formal step in aircraft certification.
The following qualification aspects had to be fulfilled in order to get an official approval. First, the overall amount of verification and certification effort must be compliant with contractual requirements of the aircraft development. Second, corner points of block clearance envelope have to be confirmed by real flights. Third, additional safety margins to flight limitations must be applied until results from VFT were verified by real flights. And fourth, flight safety considerations shall not be corrupted by relying purely on VFT results.��---AIAA 2002-5823
The authority will be involed in the VHF, but it is difficult to prove the quality and accuracy of the VFT results is enough to support the certification.So the criterion should be established first, the VHF can be developed better and better.
It will be a big proviso, but it will be become more important in the future flight test. So i think it is a good topic to research.
Last edited by Jeremy85; 5th Jan 2013 at 07:59.