562. Grumman Gulfstream II – Control of Inflight C.G. Variation
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Paper
Abstract
The Grumman Gulfstream II is scheduled to make it’s maiden flight this coming August. During the past two and a half years we have conducted investigations into every aspect of the design in an effort to make this the finest corporate aircraft ever built. A full scale hard mockup was constructed (figure 1) utilizing actual aircraft structure and components wherever possible in lieu of the usual wood and cardboard fabrications. We built a functional full scale boiler plate fuel system test rig to verify fuel system capabilities. We built a flight control system simulator, utilizing actual hardware, to ensure system stability, performance, and reliability prior to first flight. Wind tunnel models (figures 2 and 3) were extensively tested, modified and retested, until we were satisfied that we had the optimum exterior configuration. But there are certain extremely important inherent aircraft characteristics such weight and center of gravity, and moments of inertia, which cannot be determined either in a wind tunnel or from a mockup. This paper deals with one of these inherent characteristics: the aircraft’s inflight center of gravity variation.
