Reliable and Cost-Effective Flight Testing of Ultralight Aircraft

This paper reports upon an integrated approach to the flight-testing campaign of a new ultralight machine airplane model toward its certification according to the German airworthiness requirements. Flight trials have been completed, resulting in full compliance with the above regulations, and the certification process has been successfully accomplished. This result ensues from a cooperative effort of the team formed by the aircraft manufacturer and a research group of the Department of Aerospace Engineering at the Politecnico di Milano, including both permanent and external staff, together with a varying number of graduate students. The academic contribution consists of the support to flight-test mission planning, flight-test operations, data processing and analysis, as well as in the supply and management of the Mnemosine flight-test instrumentation system. This project highlights the availability of both the necessary expertise and an economic, dependable, simple, and complete flight-test instrumentation system dedicated to light aircraft, opening full access of small size manufacturers to cost-effective, reliable, systematic flight-testing procedures, in view of enhanced flight safety and overall quality of ultralight machine operations.