Introduction to Fly-by-Wire Flight Control Systems: The professional pilot’s guide to understanding modern aircraft controls

by David Kern

Is it possible to describe how fly-by-wire control systems work, without diving into engineering details?

It is a significant challenge for engineers to describe fly-by-wire concepts without math or block diagrams, but generally a greater challenge for pilots to understand the engineers’ equations. This is not an engineering textbook and there will be no math! Rather than describe a particular aircraft’s design, it explains general concepts from a pilot's perspective. The math to design these advanced systems is complicated, but the strategies underlying their designs are easily described and understood. Knowledge of fly-by-wire principles gives professional pilots an advantage to apply the flight manual procedures for their aircraft.

This book describes the fundamentals of fly-by-wire in an approachable way, including:

Problems with mechanical flight control designs
Why are four computers better than one or two?
Popular control laws
What sensors are needed, and why
Design considerations for risk mitigation

51 pages, Paperback

Published December 22, 2021

About the author

David Kern is a graduate of the US Air Force Test Pilot School and US Air Force Academy. David is an Associate Fellow with the Society of Experimental Test Pilots, Member of the Society of Flight Test Engineers, and currently serves as a flight test pilot for the Aircraft Certification Service with the Federal Aviation Administration. He holds an Airline Transport Pilot certificate with seven type ratings, and has logged time at the controls of over 80 different types of aircraft. In 2011, he was the USAF F-16 project test pilot for the Collier Trophy-winning Automatic Ground Collision Avoidance System (AGCAS). David is a devoted husband, proud father of two awesome kids, and when not flying all kinds of aircraft enjoys woodworking, camping, hiking, cooking and music. His previous publications include "Flight Test Techniques for Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) Radar", and "Accelerated Development of Flight Tested Sensors and Systems" (AIAA # 2009-1744).

Reviews

[DEVRAJ SINGHA · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved reading it

Short and concise, easy to understand. No math or technical drawings involved. A very good place to start understanding FBW systems. Even though this book is for pilots, I found great value in it as an Aerospace Engineer.