Determination of propulsion-system-induced forces and moments of a Mach 3 cruise aircraft

During the joint NASA/USAF flight research program with the YF-12 airplane, the Dutch roll damping was found to be much less during automatic inlet operation than during fixed inlet operation at Mach numbers greater than 2.5 and with the yaw stability augmentation system off. It was concluded that the significant reduction in Dutch roll damping was due to the forces and moments induced by the variable-geometry features of the inlet. Two stability-derivative extraction techniques were applied to the flight data; the recently developed Newton-Raphson technique and the time vector method. These techniques made it possible to determine the forces and moments generated by spike and bypass door movement.