A flight safety compliance verification method for control-system failures based on flight simulation and simulated flight testing

Abstract

Control-system failures can significantly affect aircraft flight safety; however, direct flight testing of severe failure cases is costly and may introduce unnecessary risk. This paper proposes a compliance-oriented verification method that combines pilot-in-the-loop flight simulation with simulated flight testing on a ground-based iron-bird facility. The method first establishes a closed-loop human-machine simulation model that includes nonlinear aircraft rigid-body dynamics, aerodynamic characteristics, the flight-control system, actuator limits, and a quasi-linear McRuer pilot model. It then organizes typical failure modes into traceable task cards and maps them to the continued safe flight and landing requirements of CCAR-25.671(c), the manoeuvre criteria of AC 25.671, and the control-force considerations of 25.143(d). A representative crosswind-landing case with a unilateral aileron jam is used to demonstrate the workflow. Simulation and simulated-flight-test results indicate that the remaining control effectiveness can support the required crosswind-landing task within the evaluated model boundary. The method provides a structured and traceable evidence workflow for flight safety compliance verification under control-system failure conditions, while explicitly identifying its application boundary in low-speed, low-altitude, and strongly nonlinear regions.