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First impressions drawn from the 36-minute first flight of the RAH-66 Comanche prototype Jan. 4 are that the aircraft's computerized handling system provides exceptional control stability combined with unusually low rotor system vibration levels for an aircraft at this stage of test.
Test pilot Rus Stiles, Sikorsky Comanche project pilot and front seater for the flight, said that what he has seen so far in this brief introduction "provided an excellent baseline" for gradual flight test envelope expansion.
"We're not going to change much in the aircraft at this stage. There's no need to," he told our sister publication Helicopter News in an interview Jan. 19.
Stiles said the aircraft was "more responsive in the axes tested," than the extensive computer simulation effort had predicted.
"That was expected," he said. "What you can never get in a simulated environment is a good picture of the "Q" factor--the control feedback. Now we're getting that data."
But simulators used to predict flight control system and display behavior "were very accurate in matching what the aircraft showed us," he said.
Stiles flew the milestone sortie with Boeing Helicopters Div. {BA} project pilot Bob Gradle at Sikorsky's West Palm, Fla., flight test center. The conventional attack helicopter seating pattern is reversed in the Comanche, with the pilot...