Development of a Flying Platform to Study Three-Surface Configurations with Redundant Longitudinal Control

Improvements in aviation are typically driven by innovative propulsion systems and unconventional configurations. However, since these novel technologies often require a significant leap to become industrially viable, less demanding alternatives can be profitably explored through intelligent adaptations of existing configurations. Three-surface airplanes can be considered as a realistic alternative to conventional back-tailed airplanes, particularly because this configuration allows for trim optimization to minimize drag, provided both the canard and tail are equipped with movable surfaces enabling redundant longitudinal control. The focus of this paper is twofold. First, it aims to provide the first field demonstration of the possible benefits of the three-surface configurations with redundant longitudinal control over equivalent back-tailed airplanes. Second, it presents a preliminary comparison between test data and numerical results obtained from a CFD simulation campaign.