Development of a Comprehensive Simulation Framework with Pilot-in-the-loop for Tiltrotor Ship Operations Feasibility Assessment.

This paper describes the development process of a comprehensive pilot-in-the-loop simulation framework suitable for preliminary feasibility, and on-deck handling qualities assessment of the Leonardo AW609 civil tiltrotor, when operating with the Italian Navy aircraft carrier Cavour. A pilot-in-the-loop engineering simulator was used for simulations in which steady, quasi-unsteady, and fully unsteady ship airwakes were created using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) and experimental data. A dedicated analysis of the simulation environment provided a strong agreement with various pilot inputs and aircraft response parameters when compared with flight data. Snapshot CFD simulations taken from a simulated lateral entry on ship deck allowed a comparison of airframe loads predicted by the aeromechanical model. While there are some good agreements and matched trends, development is ongoing to improve these aspects. Back-to-back piloted simulator approaches found a relatively good representativeness in terms of pilot feel and workload of both the quasi-unsteady and unsteady airwakes compared to flight.