ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the development of a control law for the longitudinal axis of a transport airplane with reduced inherent longitudinal stability. It explores the development of the control laws for a highly agile tactical fighter with post-stall manoeuvring capability. The chapter also describes the highly user-friendly software environment that is necessary to produce quality control laws in a timely fashion. Stability and control is one of the major technical challenges in the design of an aircraft. New aircraft designs, which typically are driven by requirements for reduced operating cost, in the case of civil transport aircraft, and reduced radar signature, in the case of military aircraft, present an increasing challenge to the flight control engineer. Motivated by the initial success, practical multivariable design techniques have been developed further and successfully applied to a wide range of control problems at Boeing over the last 15 years.
