EG-0064-01
You’re flying a large transport plane carrying hundreds of passengers and instantly you are unable to control the airplane – your controls system has gone out. As a pilot or a passenger, you hope that this scenario never presents itself, but if it did, what if there was a way to safely land the airplane by using throttles only?
With a system known as Propulsion Controlled Aircraft (PCA) not only is the concept a possibility, but it is a reality. By using a specially designed software system a successful flight test program at NASA Dryden Flight Research Center was accomplished.
The program’s humble beginning came from a rough sketch on a TWA napkin that Dryden Engineer, Bill Burcham, drew on a flight to St. Louis for a McDonnell Douglas Aerospace (MDA) meeting. He shared his idea with his traveling companion, Dryden F-15 Project Manager, James Stewart. He thought it was a great idea and within five minutes had outlined a test program. They shared it with the people at MDA the next day and they thought it might work too. With the help of Jim Urnes at MDA, they developed and tested the flight software and managed to squeeze PCA into the already existing F-15 research program.
On April 21, 1993, Gordon Fullerton landed the F-15 twice using the PCA system without using any of the flight controls. Over the course of the program, six other pilots flew the PCA equipped airplane and they were all impressed. The plane flew at various altitudes and in unusual attitudes that might be experienced after a major flight control failure. And in every test, PCA recovered the airplane successfully. On August 29, 1995, Gordon Fullerton once again demonstrated the system in a successful landing using only engine power for control, with the PCA system installed on a McDonnell-Douglas MD-11 transport aircraft…Learn more