Evaluation of a Three Degree of Freedom Test Rig for Stability Derivative Estimation

This paper details a quantitative investigation into a cost-effective, three degree-of-freedom test rig to determine aircraft static and dynamic stability derivatives. The technique used a speci�cally designed three degree-of-freedom gimbaled mechanism to connect an actively controlled model to a vertical support strut. The support strut was also mounted on a six-component piezoelectric balance to obtain aerodynamic force and moment data simultaneously with the model motion. With only minor modi�cations to the overall setup, a comprehensive set of static and dynamic stability derivatives were obtained which showed reasonable to good agreement with other, independently obtained, data.