Rotary cockpit compartment—design concept and control strategy

Abstract

A new aircraft configuration to employ a rotary cockpit compartment (RCC) is proposed to allow an arbitrary line of sight and visibility pattern. In addition to being a manually controlled system, the rotary cockpit control system is linked to the aircraft flight control computer and therefore automatically reacts to high speed turns, giving a wider view of the scene of the rear of the aircraft. To ensure the highest degree of reliability, in case the aircraft conducts a compound maneuver consisting of successive turns, two different strategies to rotate the cockpit have been investigated. A complete set of nonlinear and coupled equations of motion are used to prove the effectiveness of RCC in a complex maneuver in 3/D space. More research might be needed to investigate the possibility of pilot confusion.