Q.1 What is meant by Phugoid motion of the airplane?

Where it will be
used in real life applications.

A phugoid is an aircraft motion in which the vehicle pitches up and climbs, and then
pitches down and descends, accompanied by speeding up and slowing down as it
goes "downhill" and "uphill". This is one of the basic flight dynamics modes of
an aircraft (others include short period, dutch roll, and spiral divergence), and a
classic example of a negative feedback system.
The phugoid has a nearly constant angle of attack but varying pitch, caused by a
repeated exchange of airspeed and altitude. It can be excited by an elevator singlet
(a short, sharp deflection followed by a return to the centred position) resulting in
a pitch increase with no change in trim from the cruise condition. As speed decays,
the nose drops below the horizon. Speed increases, and the nose climbs above the
horizon. Periods can vary from under 30 seconds for light aircraft to minutes
for larger aircraft. Microlight aircraft typically show a phugoid period of 15–25
seconds, and it has been suggested that birds and model airplanes show
convergence between the phugoid and short period modes. A classical model for the
phugoid period can be simplified to about (0.85 × speed in knots) seconds, but this
only really works for larger aircraft.
Phugoids are often demonstrated to student pilots as an example of the speed
stability of the aircraft and the importance of proper trimming. When it occurs, it is
considered a nuisance, and in lighter airplanes (typically showing a shorter period) it
can be a cause of pilot-induced oscillation.
The phugoid, for moderate amplitude, occurs at an effectively constant angle of
attack, although in practice the angle of attack actually varies by a few tenths of a
degree. This means that the stalling angle of attack is never exceeded, and it is
possible (in the <1g section of the cycle) to fly at speeds below the known stalling
speed. Free flight models with badly unstable phugoid typically stall or loop,
depending on thrust.
An unstable or divergent phugoid is caused, mainly, by a large difference between
the incidence angles of the wing and tail. A stable, decreasing phugoid can be
attained by building a smaller stabilizer on a longer tail, or, at the expense of pitch
and yaw "static" stability, by shifting the centre of gravity to the rear.

Q.2 Explain term (1) Autorotation and (2) Spin

(1) Autorotation
For a helicopter, "autorotation" refers to the descending manoeuvre in which the
engine is disengaged from the main rotor system and the rotor blades are driven
solely by the upward flow of air through the rotor. The freewheeling unit is a special
clutch mechanism that disengages any time the engine rotational speed is less than
the rotor rotational speed. If the engine fails, the freewheeling unit automatically
disengages the engine from the main rotor allowing the main rotor to rotate freely.
The most common reason for autorotation is an engine malfunction or failure, but
autorotation can also be performed in the event of a complete tail rotor failure, or
following loss of tail-rotor effectiveness, since there is virtually no torque produced in
an autorotation. If altitude permits, autorotation may also be used to recover
from vortex ring state. In all cases, a successful landing depends on the helicopter's
height and velocity at the commencement of autorotation
At the instant of engine failure, the main rotor blades are
producing lift and thrust from their angle of attack and velocity. By immediately
lowering collective pitch, which must be done in case of an engine failure, the pilot
reduces lift and drag and the helicopter begins an immediate descent, producing an
upward flow of air through the rotor system. This upward flow of air through the rotor
provides sufficient thrust to maintain rotor rotational speed throughout the descent.
Since the tail rotor is driven by the main rotor transmission during autorotation,
heading control is maintained as in normal flight.
Several factors affect the rate of descent in autorotation: density altitude, gross
weight, rotor rotational speed, and forward airspeed. The pilot's primary control of
the rate of descent is airspeed. Higher or lower airspeeds are obtained with
the cyclic pitch control just as in normal flight. Rate of descent is high at zero
airspeed and decreases to a minimum at approximately 50 to 90 knots, depending
upon the particular helicopter and the factors previously mentioned. As the airspeed
increases beyond the speed that gives minimum rate of descent, the rate of descent
increases again. Even at zero airspeed, the rotor is quite effective as it has nearly
the drag coefficient of a parachute despite having much lower solidity.
When landing from an autorotation, the kinetic energy stored in the rotating blades is
used to decrease the rate of descent and make a soft landing. A greater amount of
rotor energy is required to stop a helicopter with a high rate of descent than is
required to stop a helicopter that is descending more slowly. Therefore, autorotative
descents at very low or very high airspeeds are more critical than those performed at
the minimum rate of descent airspeed.
Each type of helicopter has a specific airspeed at which a power-off glide is most
efficient. The best airspeed is the one that combines the greatest glide range with
the slowest rate of descent. The specific airspeed is different for each type of
helicopter, yet certain factors (density altitude, wind) affect all configurations in the
same manner. The specific airspeed for autorotation is established for each type of
helicopter on the basis of average weather and wind conditions and normal loading.
A helicopter operated with heavy loads in high density altitude or gusty wind
conditions can achieve best performance from a slightly increased airspeed in the
descent. At low density altitude and light loading, best performance is achieved from
a slight decrease in normal airspeed. Following this general procedure of fitting
airspeed to existing conditions, the pilot can achieve approximately the same glide
angle in any set of circumstances and estimate the touchdown point. This
optimum glide angle is usually 17–20 degrees.

During vertical autorotation, the rotor disc is divided into three regions—the driven
region, the driving region, and the stall region. The size of these regions varies with
the blade pitch, rate of descent, and rotor rotational speed. When changing
autorotative rotational speed, blade pitch, or rate of descent, the size of the regions
changes in relation to each other.
The driven region, also called the propeller region, is the region at the end of the
blades. Normally, it consists of about 30 percent of the radius. It is the driven region
that produces the most drag. The overall result is a deceleration in the rotation of the
blade.
The driving region, or autorotative region, normally lies between 25 and 70 percent
of the blade radius, which produces the forces needed to turn the blades during
autorotation. Total aerodynamic force in the driving region is inclined slightly forward
of the axis of rotation, producing a continual acceleration force. This inclination
supplies thrust, which tends to accelerate the rotation of the blade. Driving region
size varies with blade pitch setting, rate of descent, and rotor rotational speed.
The inner 25 percent of the rotor blade is referred to as the stall region and operates
above its maximum angle of attack (stall angle) causing drag, which slows rotation of
the blade. A constant rotor rotational speed is achieved by adjusting the collective
pitch so blade acceleration forces from the driving region are balanced with the
deceleration forces from the driven and stall regions.
By controlling the size of the driving region, the pilot can adjust autorotative rotational
speed. For example, if the collective pitch is raised, the pitch angle increases in all
regions. This causes the point of equilibrium to move inboard along the blade's span,
thereby increasing the size of the driven region. The stall region also becomes larger
while the driving region becomes smaller. Reducing the size of the driving region
causes the acceleration force of the driving region and rotational speed to decrease.

(2) Spin
Many types of airplanes spin only if the pilot simultaneously yaws and stalls the
airplane (intentionally or unintentionally). Under these circumstances, one wing
stalls, or stalls more deeply than the other. The wing that stalls first drops, increasing
its angle of attack and deepening the stall. At least one wing must be stalled for a
spin to occur. The other wing rises, decreasing its angle of attack, and the aircraft
yaws towards the more deeply stalled wing. The difference in lift between the two
wings causes the aircraft to roll, and the difference in drag causes the aircraft to
continue yawing. The spin characteristics diagram [7] shown in this section is typical of
an aircraft with moderate or high aspect ratio and little or no sweepback which leads
to spin motion which is primarily rolling with moderate yaw. For a low aspect ratio
swept wing with relatively large yaw and pitch inertia the diagram will be different and
illustrates a predominance of yaw.
One common scenario that can lead to an unintentional spin is
a skidding uncoordinated turn toward the runway during the landing sequence. A
pilot who is overshooting the turn to final approach may be tempted to apply more
rudder to increase the rate of turn. The result is twofold: the nose of the airplane
drops below the horizon, and the bank angle increases due to rudder roll. Reacting
to these unintended changes, the pilot then begins to pull the elevator control aft
(thus increasing the angle of attack and load factor) while applying opposite aileron
to decrease bank angle. Taken to its extreme, this can result in an uncoordinated
turn with sufficient angle of attack to cause the aircraft to stall. This is called a cross-
control stall, and is very dangerous if it happens at low altitude where the pilot has
little time to recover. To avoid this scenario, pilots learn the importance of always
making coordinated turns. They may simply choose to make the final turn earlier and
shallower to prevent an overshoot of the runway centre line and provide a larger
margin of safety. Certificated, light, single-engine airplanes must meet specific
criteria regarding stall and spin behaviour. Spins are often entered intentionally for
training, flight testing, or aerobatics.

Q.3 Discuss briefly about Directional Divergence.

Directional divergence is a result of a directionally unstable airplane. When the

airplane yaws or rolls into a sideslip so that side forces on the airplane are
generated, the yawing moments that arise continue to increase the sideslip. This
condition may continue until the airplane is broadside to the relative wind.
Spiral divergence is characterized by an airplane that is very stable directionally but
not very stable laterally; for example, a large finned airplane with no dihedral. In this
case when the airplane is in a bank and sideslipping, the side force tends to turn the
plane into the relative wind. The outer wing travels faster, generates more lift, and
the airplane will roll to still a higher bank angle. No lateral stability is present to
negate this roll. The bank angle increases and the airplane continues to turn into the
sideslip in an ever-tightening spiral.
Dutch roll is a motion exhibiting characteristics of both directional divergence and
spiral divergence. The lateral stability is strong, whereas the directional stability is
weak. If a sideslip disturbance occurs, as the airplane yaws in one direction, the
airplane rolls away in a countermotion. The airplane wags its tail from side to side.
Ventral fins, although primarily used to augment the vertical fin which may be in the
wake of the wing at high angles of attack, are also beneficial in decreasing the lateral
stability and increasing the directional stability to reduce the effects of Dutch roll.

 Directional Derivatives

To this point we’ve only looked at the two partial

derivatives fx(x,y)fx(x,y) and fy(x,y)fy(x,y). Recall that these derivatives represent the
rate of change of ff as we vary xx (holding yy fixed) and as we
vary yy (holding xx fixed) respectively. We now need to discuss how to find the rate
of change of ff if we allow both xx and yy to change simultaneously. The problem
here is that there are many ways to allow both xx and yy to change. For instance,
one could be changing faster than the other and then there is also the issue of
whether or not each is increasing or decreasing. So, before we get into finding the
rate of change we need to get a couple of preliminary ideas taken care of first. The
main idea that we need to look at is just how are we going to define the changing
of xx and/or yy.
Let’s start off by supposing that we wanted the rate of change of ff at a particular
point, say (x0,y0)(x0,y0). Let’s also suppose that both xx and yy are increasing and
that, in this case, xx is increasing twice as fast as yy is increasing. So,
as yy increases one unit of measure xx will increase two units of measure.
To help us see how we’re going to define this change let’s suppose that a particle is
sitting at (x0,y0)(x0,y0) and the particle will move in the direction given by the
changing xx and yy. Therefore, the particle will move off in a direction of
increasing xx and yy and the xx coordinate of the point will increase twice as fast as
the yy coordinate. Now that we’re thinking of this changing xx and yy as a direction
of movement we can get a way of defining the change. We know from Calculus II
that vectors can be used to define a direction and so the particle, at this point, can be
said to be moving in the direction,
→v=⟨2,1⟩v→=⟨2,1⟩
Since this vector can be used to define how a particle at a point is changing we can
also use it describe how xx and/or yy is changing at a point. For our example we will
say that we want the rate of change of ff in the direction of →v=⟨2,1⟩v→=⟨2,1⟩. In this
way we will know that xx is increasing twice as fast as yy is. There is still a small
problem with this however. There are many vectors that point in the same direction.
For instance, all of the following vectors point in the same direction
as →v=⟨2,1⟩v→=⟨2,1⟩.
→v=⟨15,110⟩→v=⟨6,3⟩→v=⟨2√5,1√5⟩v→=⟨15,110⟩v→=⟨6,3⟩v→=⟨25,15⟩
We need a way to consistently find the rate of change of a function in a given
direction. We will do this by insisting that the vector that defines the direction of
change be a unit vector. Recall that a unit vector is a vector with length, or
magnitude, of 1. This means that for the example that we started off thinking about
we would want to use
→v=⟨2√5,1√5⟩v→=⟨25,15⟩
since this is the unit vector that points in the direction of change.
For reference purposes recall that the magnitude or length of the
vector →v=⟨a,b,c⟩v→=⟨a,b,c⟩ is given by,
∥→v∥=√a2+b2+c2‖v→‖=a2+b2+c2
For two dimensional vectors we drop the cc from the formula.
Sometimes we will give the direction of changing xx and yy as an angle. For
instance, we may say that we want the rate of change of ff in the direction
of θ=π3θ=π3. The unit vector that points in this direction is given by,
→u=⟨cosθ,sinθ⟩u→=⟨cos⁡θ,sin⁡θ⟩
Okay, now that we know how to define the direction of changing xx and yy its time to
start talking about finding the rate of change of ff in this direction. Let’s start off with
the official definition.
Definition
The rate of change of f(x,y)f(x,y) in the direction of the unit
vector →u=⟨a,b⟩u→=⟨a,b⟩ is called the directional derivative and is denoted
by D→uf(x,y)Du→f(x,y). The definition of the directional derivative is,
D→uf(x,y)=limh→0f(x+ah,y+bh)−f(x,y)hDu→f(x,y)=limh→0⁡f(x+ah,y+bh)−f(x,y)h
So, the definition of the directional derivative is very similar to the definition of partial
derivatives. However, in practice this can be a very difficult limit to compute so we
need an easier way of taking directional derivatives. It’s actually fairly simple to
derive an equivalent formula for taking directional derivatives.
To see how we can do this let’s define a new function of a single variable,
g(z)=f(x0+az,y0+bz)g(z)=f(x0+az,y0+bz)
where x0x0, y0y0, aa, and bb are some fixed numbers. Note that this really is a
function of a single variable now since zz is the only letter that is not representing a
fixed number.
Then by the definition of the derivative for functions of a single variable we have,
g′(z)=limh→0g(z+h)−g(z)hg′(z)=limh→0⁡g(z+h)−g(z)h
and the derivative at z=0z=0 is given by,
g′(0)=limh→0g(h)−g(0)hg′(0)=limh→0⁡g(h)−g(0)h
If we now substitute in for g(z)g(z) we get,
g′(0)=limh→0g(h)−g(0)h=limh→0f(x0+ah,y0+bh)−f(x0,y0)h=D→uf(x0,y0)g
′(0)=limh→0⁡g(h)−g(0)h=limh→0⁡f(x0+ah,y0+bh)−f(x0,y0)h=Du→f(x0,y0)
So, it looks like we have the following relationship.
g′(0)=D→uf(x0,y0)(1)(1)g′(0)=Du→f(x0,y0)
Now, let’s look at this from another perspective. Let’s rewrite g(z)g(z) as follows,
g(z)=f(x,y)wherex=x0+az and y=y0+bzg(z)=f(x,y)wherex=x0+az and y=y0+bz
We can now use the chain rule from the previous section to compute,
g′(z)=dgdz=∂f∂xdxdz+∂f∂ydydz=fx(x,y)a+fy(x,y)bg′
(z)=dgdz=∂f∂xdxdz+∂f∂ydydz=fx(x,y)a+fy(x,y)b
So, from the chain rule we get the following relationship.
g′(z)=fx(x,y)a+fy(x,y)b(2)(2)g′(z)=fx(x,y)a+fy(x,y)b
If we now take z=0z=0 we will get that x=x0x=x0 and y=y0y=y0 (from how we
defined xx and yy above) and plug these into (2)(2) we get,
g′(0)=fx(x0,y0)a+fy(x0,y0)b(3)(3)g′(0)=fx(x0,y0)a+fy(x0,y0)b
Now, simply equate (1)(1) and (3)(3) to get that,
D→uf(x0,y0)=g′(0)=fx(x0,y0)a+fy(x0,y0)bDu→f(x0,y0)=g′(0)=fx(x0,y0)a+fy(x0,y0)b
If we now go back to allowing xx and yy to be any number we get the following
formula for computing directional derivatives.
D→uf(x,y)=fx(x,y)a+fy(x,y)bDu→f(x,y)=fx(x,y)a+fy(x,y)b
This is much simpler than the limit definition. Also note that this definition assumed
that we were working with functions of two variables. There are similar formulas that
can be derived by the same type of argument for functions with more than two
variables. For instance, the directional derivative of f(x,y,z)f(x,y,z) in the direction of
the unit vector →u=⟨a,b,c⟩u→=⟨a,b,c⟩ is given by,
D→uf(x,y,z)=fx(x,y,z)a+fy(x,y,z)b+fz(x,y,z)c