Fly-by-wire flight control

Fly-by-wire (FBW) flight control has cone into use in production aircraft (as opposed to experimental prototypes) since the late 1970s and can enable a major increase in flight control capability to be achieved. One of the unique benefits of a FBW flight control system is the ability to fly aircraft configurations which have minimal stability margins or which may be aerodynamically unstable over part or even the whole of the flight envelope. Such aircraft configurations and shapes are chosen for aerodynamic efficiency or for achieving ‘stealth’. that is minimisation of detection by radar. Higher agility can be achieved with an aerodynamically unstable aircraft compared with a conventional stable configuration. agility being defined as the ability to change the direction of the aircraft’s velocity vector. Increases in turn rate of 35% are being claimed for the new generation FBW fighters with aerodynamically unstable configurations over conventional designs – a major edge in air combat.