SUPPLEMENTARY PAPER
Test Pilots Croup
The Theory and Practice of Inertia
Cross-Coupling
W. J. G. PINSKER
Aero Department, Royal Aircraft Establishment,
1. INTRODUCTION
About 13 years ago rumours began to emerge from the
USA of a hitherto unknown and mysterious condition
afflicting the F100 and other contemporary fighter aircraft.
In fast rolls these aircraft were said to experience gyrations
in yaw and in pitch which by all accounts had no right to
exist, especially as aerodynamically these configurations
could not be faulted. After a burst of theoretical and
experimental activity the condition was explained and
the terms inertia cross-coupling, roll-coupling, roll yaw
coupling and other synonyms became common currency in
the world of aeronautics. The mystery of these puzzling
manoeuvres was essentially solved. Unfortunately the
problem was not. Cross-coupling has since become a
major item on the agenda of the designer of every high-
speed fighting aircraft and more recently it has also made
some incursions in the area of the large slender aircraft.
Although first recognised in the early fifties as a distinct
and novel form of aircraft response, it would be surprising
if cross-coupling had not affected aircraft before then.
The basic theory of this condition was firmly established
early as 1948 by Phillips of the NACA in ref. 1. The
message, however, was not heeded until the problem
presented itself very forcefully in flight testing.
With the benefit of hindsight, I can myself attribute to
cross-coupling two early flight incidents with which I
was closely concerned at the time. The first occurred
towards the close of the year 1944 when I was working at
the DVL in Berlin. The aircraft involved was the proto-
type of the Heinkel 162, a small single jet fighter, perhaps
better known as the Volksjager or the peoples' fighter.
During a demonstration to the chiefs of the Luftwaffe this
aircraft disintegrated in a fast high-speed roll. Fortuitously
a number of film cameras recorded the event and with
their help the fatal manoeuvre could be reconstructed in
it detail. Every available expert was summoned to
explain what happened and perhaps to save this last hope
of the ailing Luftwaffe. To everybody's great concern and
consternation, however, the observed motion of the air-
craft simply could not be reconciled with whatever calcu-
lations we were able to make. Finally the attempt of a
rational explanation was abandoned. It was customary
then to use for these calculations the equations describing
the aircraft motion in a simplified form, in which a few
"minor" terms are ignored, the gyroscopic terms which
we now know are responsible for inertia cross-coupling.
You may recall that this accident repeated itself shortly
i after the war, over Farnborough when a captured example
; Presented to the Test Pilots' Group of the Royal Aeronautical
\ Society on 10th January 1967.
695
Bedford
of this type was tested. Cross-coupling usually is associated
with a long and slim configuration, characteristics which
the Heinkel 162 certainly lacked. It had, however, two
features which would make it a possible victim. The air-
craft had its engine mounted on top of the rear fuselage
and this gave it a rather severe nose-down tilt of the princi-
pal inertia axis and as we shall see later, this makes an
aircraft prone to autorotation. Furthermore the aircraft
had a wing span of only 23-5 ft and a fair turn of speed,
which should have given it a rather spectacular rolling
capability and this by itself can cause cross-coupling with
even an otherwise innocent looking design.
The second example of what I now suspect to be
another early case of roll-coupling I met in this country
when working on the Fairey Delta 1. During a practice
run prior to its first appearance at an SBAC show in
Farnborough the pilot tried a fast roll which on this air-
craft promised to be a particularly spectacular stunt with
a roll rate approaching 500°/s. Halfway through the roll
the pilot lost control, or rather the aircraft took over, for-
tunately with no lasting ill effect to either pilot or aircraft.
The aircraft carried extensive flight test instrumentation
which recorded the event and provided again a frustrating
puzzle. No calculated response even when making wild
assumptions about misbehaved aerodynamics could even
faintly approximate what quite plainly happened to the
aircraft. At the same time the same theory worked per-
fectly well when matched against other records of more
moderate roll manoeuvres, when the aircraft behaved
conventionally.
These two examples demonstrate vividly some of the
principal features of the phenomenon we now identify as
cross-coupling. The motion experienced by the aircraft,
once in the grip of gyroscopic reactions, is so altered and
seemingly irrational that the pilot is unable to analyse the
situation and take logical counter measures. Furthermore
the behaviour of the same aircraft manoeuvred at sub-
critical roll rates gives no easily discernible warning of the
drastic changes that will take place when a larger amount
of aileron is used.
It is also interesting to note from these admittedly
rather exceptional examples that inertia cross-coupling
need not be the sole privilege of the long and slender air-
craft which is generally and quite rightly considered to be
particularly exposed to this problem. One should not be
tempted, therefore, to dismiss cross-coupling as irrelevant
simply because an aircraft does not present itself as an
obvious contender.
Today, of course, we have the theoretical understanding
and the necessary practical experience to deal with such
a case more competently.
 696 VOL. 73 THE AERONAUTICAL JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL AERONAUTICAL SOCIETY
Rational procedures have been established which take
inertia cross-coupling into account during the design stage
and which later permit flight testing to proceed with no
more hazard to the pilot than in any other area of develop-
ment flying. This experience has been built up during the
last decade, and it is this I wish to make the main subject
of this paper.
There are three areas in aviation practice in which the
advent of cross-coupling has made a permanent impact.
First, the theory of the dynamics of aircraft response
had to be recast to allow it to take account of those
additional terms which are responsible for this novel form
of aircraft behaviour.
Secondly, we had to find a new approach to flight
clearance testing so as to be able to approach with safety
a flight regime where disaster can be met with little warn-
ing and where even small errors in the supporting analysis
can have disproportionate consequences.
Finally roll control requirements had to be severely
scrutinised, as previously they had not been defined in the
sort of detail that was necessary to specify valid flight
clearance tests for the new class of aircraft. At the same
time the services had to be asked to surrender the
customary freedom for practically unlimited aileron usage,
because cross-coupling posed the worst problems in aero-
batic manoeuvres of little tactical use.
These aspects will now be considered in some detail.
2. THE THEORY OF INERTIA CROSS-COUPLING
The complete equations of motion of the aircraft as we
find them at the first few pages of every textbook on
stability and control contain everything that is needed to
represent the behaviour of an aircraft whether it suffers
from inertia cross-coupling or not. Unfortunately, these
equations contain a number of product terms, which would
render their solution by any known analytical process
utterly impractical. Early workers in aircraft stability and
control found, however, that for the aircraft as they knew
it, the most awkward terms in these equations, namely
those coupling the lateral and longitudinal motion were
insignificantly small and, therefore, could be safely
omitted. Once this is done lateral and longitudinal stability
can be treated separately.
In terms of aircraft control this means, e.g. that the pilot
will only have to worry about the longitudinal motion if
he uses the elevator and conversely that in using lateral
and directional control he need not fear to disturb the air-
craft longitudinally.
More important still is that the two sets of equations
now become linear which means that they can be dealt
with by straightforward mathematical techniques and,
what is more, that they are soluble with an amount of time
and effort which would not be prohibitive within the con-
text of practical aircraft engineering. One of the obvious
attractions of this simple linear theory is that it predicts that
the response of the aircraft to say 2° of aileron is exactly
twice that in response to 1 ° and so on. As a consequence,
one only needs to work out the answer to one control
input and knows then immediately the response to all
other possible aileron demands. Similarly if we know the
response to say 1 ° of aileron and separately that to 1 ° of
rudder we can obtain the response to the simultaneous
applications of these two controls simply by adding the
two original results. What could be simpler?
Unfortunately, inertia cross-coupling is caused by the
very terms one had to ignore to arrive at this happy state
of affairs. When the inertia-product terms are retained,
lateral and longitudinal stability are inseparable in the air-
AUGUST 19691
craft equations; they present a disheartening prospect to
the aerodynamicist.
In essence these terms represent gyroscopic reactions
which are associated with aircraft inertia and grow
according to a well known principle of mechanics with
either the square of an angular velocity or with the product
of two angular velocities. Hence we speak of product
terms. A steady increase in aircraft inertia is clearly evident
to the most casual observer of the evolution of the fighting
aircraft and at the same time roll performance tended to
increase with steadily increasing speeds, especially when
the advent of powered controls removed the principal
obstacle to the maintenance of rolling power at high speeds.
Inertia cross-coupling had to happen when these two
trends combined together reached a certain critical level.
To return to the problem facing the aerodynamicist, he
was now presented with a set of equations to which no
analytical solution could be found. The only way to cal-
culate an aircraft response was to plod through a tedious
step by step integration. Just one solution required about
two man-weeks of hard labour. Worse still, however, the
result so obtained will be valid only for the particular
control input considered. To learn what happens in
response to perhaps only 10% more control the whole
procedure had to be repeated from scratch and so on.
What was needed in this situation was nothing short of
a miracle. This miracle presented itself at precisely that
point in time with the appearance of the first practical
analogue computer. This device allowed the two man-weeks
to be cut to literally seconds, beating by a dramatic margin
even the previously not considered unreasonable effort to
deal with the linear case. Now we had the tool to tackle
cross-coupling in the office. Since then the electronic com-
puter, analogue or digital, has become inseparably linked
with every stage of work on this problem. We shall say
more about its role when discussing design and flight test
procedures.
Although the computer is the perfect answer for
detailed work it does not lend itself to the formulation of
a general theory and the derivation of broad design rules.
Indeed, such rules can only spring from generalised
analysis. However, if we simplify the problem sufficiently
as Phillips had done in his original paper' 1 ', by considering
not real roll manoeuvres but steady rolling, a relatively
simple physical picture will emerge and this I will attempt
now to present. It must be realised, however, that this
picture is rather incomplete and that in a real bank
manoeuvre or, say, a rolling pull-out, the situation is con-
siderably more complex. Even then the operative agents
will be the same as those that are responsible for the
instability in steady rolling which the simple theory
predicts. Rigorous mathematical treatment of this theory
can be found in many earlier papers and text books, e.g.
refs. 1-5 and the more seriously interested reader may
refer to these.
Although cross-coupling may be simply defined as an
aircraft manoeuvre in which gyroscopic effects significantly
affect the response, one can distinguish perhaps three
seperate conditions in which inertia cross-coupling mani-
fests itself in practice. These are:
(/) The most commonly known form of inertia coupling
or roll yaw coupling met in rolling manoeuvres.
00 Inertia induced autorotation.
(Hi) Inertia induced pitching in response to rudder.
These will now be discussed separately.
2.1. Yaw and Pitch Divergence in Rolling Manoeuvres
The common form of inertia cross-coupling is usually
associated with sideslip divergence—hence the term roll
W. J. G. PINSKER THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF INERTIA CROSS-COUPLING
(a)
<--tl.
i" (b)
\ y FLIGHT
-^ —r v r
s "A ! Nj
T
(d)
k
^
FLIGHT PATH
/
T
Figure 1. (a) Simplified inertia distribution and gyroscopic forces, (b) Inertia
reactions in roll-yaw coupling, (c) Spin stabilised rolling, (d) Roll inertia
stabilises yaw. (e) Inertia reactions in roll-pitch coupling.
yaw coupling—but the condition invariably also involves
pitching and in certain circumstances pitching may become,
in fact, the more prominent hazard. Let us consider first
the condition where the main difficulty is in yaw.
We consider an aircraft in steady rolling. To allow the
inertia reactions to become more readily demonstrated we
imagine the mass of the aircraft concentrated in four
distinct lumps at the extremities of the airframe as shown
in Fig. 1(a). The two masses located at either end of the
fuselage represent inertia in pitch B. Those carried by the
wings represent roll inertia A. All four acting together then
add up to inertia in yaw C.
For a sufficiently "flat" aircraft these three terms, in
fact, are related simply as
C =B+ A
If we now assume the aircraft depicted in Fig. 1 to roll
about its longitudinal axis, centrifugal forces begin to act
on these masses. The fuselage masses representing pitch
inertia, however, are not affected in this case whereas the
wing masses representing the aircraft's roll inertia will try
to tear the wings from the fuselage. These forces will,
of course, concern the structural designer, but in their
overall effect on the aircraft they cancel each other and
hence no inertia cross-coupling.
However, if we assume that the aircraft for whatever
reason is disturbed in yaw, say, due to trim asymmetry or
as a result of aileron yaw and if rolling can still be
assumed to take place about the flight path axis as indi-
cated in Fig. 1(b), all four masses or both inertias so
represented are now subject to centrifugal reactions. It can
be seen that those representing pitch inertia produce a
couple which tries to increase yaw whereas the roll inertia
couple tries to restore trim. Whether the overall result is
destabilising or otherwise clearly will depend on the
balance between these opposing terms. Rigorous analysis
easily shows that the overall affect is simply proportional
to the difference between pitch and roll inertia, i.e. to B-A.
If inertia in pitch is greater than roll inertia as in the case
considered here, the destabilising couple will win and a
destabilising yawing moment is generated.
So far we have completely ignored the role of aero-
dynamics. The term of interest here is clearly weathercock
stability nv. If nv is sufficiently powerful, it will be able to
resist the gyroscopic couple, which does then no more than
produce a certain amount in sideslip which will increase in
697
£ ak
FLIGHT PATH
^¥^
proportion to the square of rolling velocity. However, if
either nv is too small or rolling velocity is sufficiently in-
creased, a point will eventually be reached where the
inertial reactions overpower the aerodynamic restraint
imposed by n„ and the aircraft diverges. Roll coupling is
now established in full. You may have noted that in this
simple analysis we have completely ignored pitching.
Indeed the picture presented here is valid strictly only if
longitudinal stability is infinitely strong.
Although of perhaps little more than academic interest
to the pilot we may, nevertheless, enquire what happens
if we were to increase the roll rate to a much larger value
than that causing yaw divergence. Gyroscopic forces take
now full control and as a consequence of a general prin-
ciple of mechanics, the vehicle eventually will become spin
stabilised and roll rapidly about its fuselage axis which
remains fixed in space, but not necessarily aligned with the
flight path. It is easy to see in Fig. 1(c) that during this
rolling motion sideslip and incidence will fluctuate
periodically without, however, increasing in amplitude.
This is, in fact, the normal "flight" condition of the
artillery shell. It has been observed that such projectiles
occasionally do experience uncontrolled gyrations which
are identical to aircraft cross-coupling. This happens if
the spin rate drops below a certain critical value.
It will be clear from the above discussion that it is
possible to prevent gyroscopic yaw divergence if we make
roll inertia sufficiently large, i.e. equal to or larger than
pitch inertia. This case is illustrated in Fig. 1(d). Roll
inertia normally goes with wing span and in this we recog-
nise one of the reasons why the earlier high aspect ratio
aircraft was free from inertia cross-coupling. If A~>B, the
inertia forces, in fact, will stabilise yawing and result in
an aircraft rolling response more favourable than conven-
tional calculations would predict.
Although the yaw divergence discussed so far is the
more familiar manifestation of inertia cross-coupling,
theory and occasionally also flight records reveal a con-
dition where the aircraft diverges in pitch rather than yaw.
This is the result of the same phenomenon as discussed
before only transferred into another plane.
This is illustrated in Fig. 1(e). Now, only the fuselage
contribution, i.e. pitch inertia is involved, there are no
inertial reactions counteracting the destabilising inertia
pitching couple. As distinct from the yaw case we, there-
 VOL. 73 THE AERONAUTICAL JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL AERONAUTICAL SOCIETY
PITCH
DIVERGENCE
STABLE
*>r
,„,!,,
V 1*1, J
Figure 2. (a) Phillips' stability diagram, (b) Phillips' stability diagram for
aircraft where A > B. (c) Aircraft with deficient longitudinal stability, (d)
Phillips' stability boundaries if pitch and yaw damping are included.
fore, cannot suppress roll pitch coupling by changing the
aircraft's inertia distribution, although the magnitude of
pitch inertia itself will govern the severity of the condition.
The aircraft's static margin now is the principal aero-
dynamic constraint which the gyroscopic couple has to
overpower to lead to instability. It is mainly because air-
craft tend to have larger aerodynamic stability in pitch
than in sideslip that this form of inertia cross-coupling is
rarely met. Again, as in the discussion of yaw divergence
we made the assumption that the aircraft is in perfect trim
in the other plane, sideslip in this case. In other words, we
assumed infinitely large weathercock-stability. In a
practical case both yaw and pitch will be involved in
rolling and it is one of the prominent characteristics of the
cross-coupled aircraft, that it responds in all these modes
simultaneously.
Phillips in ref. 1 was the first to present a rigorous
mathematical analysis of these phenomena, again
restricting himself to the treatment of steady rolling. The
result of this work can be summarised in the delightfully
simple stability diagram shown in Fig. 2(a). I should
mention that I have reversed in this diagram the conven-
tional presentation, as this might help in our discussion.
In this diagram we note two separate regions of instability,
one in which the aircraft will cross-couple predominantly
in yaw, and another in which difficulties will appear more
prominently in pitch. It is also seen that the exposure or
otherwise of the aircraft to inertia induced divergence is
defined quite simply by two parameters, namely the ratio
p„l(t)^ i.e. the ratio of roll rate (in radians/s) to the
frequency of the directional oscillation (again in radians/
s) and a similar ratio p0/cog which is the ratio of roll
rate to the frequency of the pitching oscillation. The
stability boundaries lie at p„/o)«=l and at pBloi^—Cj
(B—A). We recognise in these parameters all the quantities
which we have met in the above qualitative argument. The
yawing frequency co^ is, of course, a measure of the
directional stability parameter nv and similarly co$
represents longitudinal stability mw.
If we want to find out what happens to an aircraft in a
given flight condition as roll rate increases we simply have
to consider a straight line radiating from the origin
A U G U S T 1969
(representing zero roll rate). The inclina-
tion of this line is simply defined by the
^
ratio of coe/ft)^, i.e. by the ratio of
-*- stability in pitch to directional stability.
If we consider a different flight condition,
\ MAXIMUM this ratio generally will change and we
ROLL RATE have to represent the aircraft by a differ-
1 I ent line. The case illustrated in Fig.
2(d) represents the more usual case
where coe > co^,. As we increase roll rate
p„, we move along the radial line until
we cross the first stability boundary and
further increase in p„ will bring the air-
craft to a divergence (here a yaw diver-
gence). Further speeding up of roll rate
would move one eventually across the
second boundary into a second stable
region where the vehicle would be spin-
stabilised. Whether an aircraft, in fact,
will experience the full range of these
conditions depends, of course, on its
maximum roll rate. We have indicated
this in Fig. 2(d) by limiting the full line
representing the practical roll range of
our assumed aircraft. The dashed exten-
sion of this line is of merely theoretical
interest. If roll rate would be limited to stop within the
stable region near the origin, the aircraft would not be in
danger of cross-coupled divergence, even if rolling with
full aileron.
Increasing nv has the effect of increasing o^ and hence
of reducing the ratio p0lw^. Hence increasing nv has the
same effect as reducing pn and is an obvious means of
relieving this form in inertia cross-coupling.
We had seen before that increasing roll inertia A in
relation to pitch inertia B helps to reduce the danger from
yaw divergence. In Phillips' stability diagram this will show
up as a shift to the right of the vertical stability boundary.
If we make A^>B this boundary will vanish altogether
from our picture as in Fig. 2(b). The aircraft considered
before is now stable up to its maximum roll rate. How-
ever, if it were possible to increase its rolling performance,
it would then hit the horizontal stability boundary and
diverge in pitch. Increasing roll inertia has only removed
one form of instability but not the other. Nevertheless for
our aircraft the critical roll rate at which trouble first
occurs has been raised. It is interesting to note that in this
case no "spin stable" region exists at all. A projectile with
a high aspect ratio wing, therefore, would not recommend
itself to the missile designer.
Occasionally an aircraft will be more deficient in mw
than in nv, so that G)e<c«v This leads to the condition
shown in Fig. 2(c). Now the pitch divergence boundary is
reached first and for sufficiently fast roll rates spin stabi-
lisation is again possible, if A<JS.
To obtain this simple picture, some of the aircraft's
aerodynamics had to be sacrificed. When a more complete
analysis is carried out, however, the stability situation does
not drastically change. As shown in Fig. 2(d), the damping
terms now represented have the effect of separating the
two unstable regions by a narrow corridor, which widens
if pitch and yaw damping are increased. It would seem
then that we need only tune coe and colV for the aircraft to
have an unlimited range of roll rate without danger from
either form of inertia cross-coupling.
Unfortunately the promise suggested by this simple
treatment is of only limited value in actual flight. To
understand why this is so we have to leave the theory of
steady rolling and consider what happens in a practical
W. J. G. P1NSKER THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF INERTIA CROSS-COUPLING
ROLL RATE
Figure 3. (a) Flight r e c o r d of a roll c o u p l i n g a c c i d e n t .
(b) Roll m a n o e u v r e w i t h peaks in i n c i d e n c e and s i d e s l i p .
roll manoeuvre. Although inertia cross-coupling accidents
are known to have involved straight yaw divergence (Fig.
3(a), this extreme condition is not normally the principal
concern of the aircraft designer. In bank manoeuvres in
which roll rate comes near the critical value, the aircraft
usually experiences one or two peaks in sideslip and/or
incidence as in the example shown in Fig. 3(b). The air-
craft designer has to ensure that these inertia induced
response peaks do not exceed the structural limits of the
airframe. In high-speed flight these peaks need not be large
to reach a dangerous level and consequently the roll rates
involved may be well below those associated with in-
stability proper. Many factors will influence these peaks.
The way in which aileron is applied and removed for
instance, what the pilot does with the elevator during the
roll and many other factors not directly contributing to
the stability argument as such. However, Phillips' theory
does not only define stability boundaries, it also predicts
what happens to stability as we approach these boundaries,
and these results are of some relevance to our problem.
Details of this treatment can be found in the literature, let
us simply note here that stability of both the pitching
oscillation and of the lateral oscillation progressively
deteriorate when roll rate is increased towards the critical
value defined by the stability boundary itself. So, instead
of the black and white picture I had given so far, we shall
find all shades of grey on the so called stable side of the
diagram (Fig. 4) and it is in this grey area that most of the
routine cross-coupling difficulties are located. This grey
area completely fills the "stable" corridor we had
previously found to show some promise and which we
now must accept as being able at most to give a measure
of relief.
So much for the basic theory of the common form of
cross-coupling. We shall now briefly consider two flight
hazards produced by the same physical effects but leading
to some different practical problems.
2.2. Inertia Induced Autorotation
One of the possible consequences of the interference of
gyroscopic forces with the dynamics of the rolling aircraft
is the occurrence of autorotation, i.e. a condition where
the aircraft locks into steady rolling after ailerons are
brought back to neutral. In some sense one could relate
this condition to spinning but the essential difference is
that inertia-induced autorotation does not involve wing
stall or any other aerodynamic abnormality.
A detailed explanation of this phenomenon is too
complex to make good material for a short lecture. It may
be found, e.g. in ref. 2. However, we have seen that one
of the main consequences of general cross-coupling is the
generation of sideslip. If this sideslip is in such a sense
699
STABLE
Figure 4. Gradual r e d u c t i o n in stability towards divergence
boundaries.
t ROLL
RATE
NO AUTO-
ROTATION
IN THIS
REGION
STABLE
PRINCIPAL INERTIA AXIS INCIDENCE
Figure 5. Inertia i n d u c e d autorotation as a function of
incidence.
that the associated rolling moment due to sideslip (/„)
resists the assumed roll, the overall effect is to reduce the
roll rate achieved by a given amount of aileron. This is,
in fact, what normally happens and it is an effect which
offers some welcome relief. Generally it becomes more
powerful in flight at high incidence, i.e. at high normal
acceleration. Conversely if an aircraft is rolled in flight at
very low or negative incidence, the associated sideslip
will change sign and the dihedral effect 7„ will now tend to
reinforce the effect of the ailerons. Eventually, when a
certain critical roll rate is exceeded, this effect will be
powerful enough to support rolling without the assistance
of the ailerons and we have autorotation. The motive
forces again are gyroscopic couples generated by the air-
craft inertia and the "incidence" which governs auto-
rotation is not angle of attack in the usual sense, but the
inclination with respect to the flight path of the aircraft's
principal inertia axis. If heavy parts of the structure, such
as high tailplane, are carried high above the rear fuselage,
the principal inertia axis may be tilted to a significant
degree in relation to the fuselage axis and may be
at negative incidence when the aircraft flies at positive
angle of attack. Inertia coupled autorotation can then
occur even in flight at positive g, especially at high speed,
where the aerodynamic incidence is small. Although one
cannot compress the results of the theory of autorotation
into a single general diagram, the answer in every case
can be presented in the form indicated in Fig. 5, where
roll rate is plotted against incidence. First we note that
there is a limiting incidence a L , above which the aircraft
will not autorotate. In flight at lower incidence and in
particular at negative incidence, however, the aircraft is
capable of autorotation. The diagrams show in this region
two important boundaries. The upper branch of this
boundary represented by a thick line, denotes the roll
rates at which the aircraft will autorotate. The lower (thin
line) branch of the curve defines the divergence boundary.
If manoeuvred at roll rates below those defined by this
boundary, the aircraft will be stable and rolling will
cease if aileron is removed. Once the critical roll rate is
exceeded, rolling will speed up of its own accord and the
aircraft will finish up in steady autorotation. The lower
the incidence the lower will be the critical roll rate for
700 VOL. 73 THE AERONAUTICAL JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL AERONAUTICAL SOCIETY
-i RUDDER
A - t H
I 2 t 3
Figure 6. Computed response of a slender aircraft to rudder.
divergence and the faster will be the consequent auto-
rotation. The problem becomes increasingly serious with
increasing negative normal acceleration.
The mere fact that an aircraft can autorotate need not
necessarily imply that this condition is fatal. What little
evidence we have tends to suggest that the aircraft can be
recovered by the application of counter control. What
makes manoeuvring so hazardous to the pilot in this area
is the fact that the relationship between aileron and roll
rate becomes most uncertain and the pilot is unable to
control the roll manoeuvre with any degree of precision.
Since the aircraft is at the same time subject to ordinary
yaw divergence, he may lose the aircraft due to an
excessive sideslip peak rather than as a result of irre-
coverable autorotation.
2.3. Rudder Induced Pitching
More recently inertia coupling has made an appearance
in yet another context. Calculations of the response of
some slender aircraft to rudder have predicted quite
alarming normal acceleration peaks. Fig. 6 shows such a
computer result. If the aerodynamicist doing this work
had used classical stability theory, he would never have
spotted this problem. As it was, experience with roll
coupling has taught him caution and as a result the
problem was promptly recognised and dealt with in the
design stage and it was not left to the test pilot to find out
the hard way.
The mechanisms of this response are shown in Fig. 7.
At (1) rudder is applied and yaw develops as a proper con-
sequence at (2). Now the dihedral effect /„ comes into
play and causes the aircraft to roll. If the aircraft has a
very elongated mass distribution giving it a pronounced
inertia minimum about the fuselage axis, the aircraft will
roll about this axis, following the path of least resistance.
It is readily seen that purely from the kinematics of this
response the original sideslip at (2) will now turn into
incidence as bank angle develops at (3) and hence normal
acceleration increases.
0) RUDDER APPLIED AIRCRAFT
STARTS YAWING
(2) SIDESLIP OEVELOPES
AND GENERATES ROLLING
(3) SIDESLIP • BANK RESULT
IN INCREASED INCIDENCE
Figure 7. Response of the inertially slender aircraft to rudder
application.
AUGUST 1969
What was originally defined as a fin stressing case has
turned out to be a wing loading condition. Fortunately,
rudder is not normally used as a primary flying control
1 so that the practical significance of this form of response
4 SEC
cannot compare in importance with aileron induced cross-
coupling. Nevertheless, it is clearly important to be fully
aware of the phenomenon and allow for it in design
analysis. It should be noted that asymmetric engine failure
produces essentially the same response and it is this case
which may be the more embarrassing to the aircraft
designer.
3. THE IMPACT OF INERTIA CROSS-COUPLING ON
AIRCRAFT DESIGN AND FLIGHT DEVELOPMENT
Inertia cross-coupling has laid upon the aircraft
designer yet another and quite substantial burden. Not
only is a new problem added to his already wide respon-
sibilities but one which exceeds in complexity anything
previously encountered under the heading of stability and
control. In many ways cross-coupling may be compared
with flutter, both with respect to complexity and in the
precipitous nature of the inherent hazard. Rules of thumb
and easy shortcuts are not part of the equipment to deal
with inertia cross-coupling. Careful and painstaking
theoretical work and cautious flight testing must go hand in
hand, only so can expensive surprises be avoided.
Once an aircraft design is recognised as potentially
prone to cross-coupling, the designer is committed to an
extensive programme of work. Past experience has shown
in particular the following problem areas which make his
task so demanding.
(0 Cross-coupling is disproportionately sensitive to
quite small errors in the aerodynamic data, especially in
directional stability. nv is notoriously difficult to obtain
accurately from tunnel tests. The necessity to sting mount
high-speed models makes it difficult to represent faithfully
the rear end of an aircraft, the very region in which most
of the «„ is produced. The nv in question is, of course, that
of the aircraft distorted by aeroelasticity. Meaningful
response calculations, therefore, can only be made after
aeroelastic data have become available. Inertia cross-
coupling invariably involves large amplitude responses and
aerodynamically the aircraft may be far from linear over
this range. Again care must be taken to ensure first that
wind tunnel results cover this range in detail and that this
detail is properly fed into the computer work.
(//) In many aspects of aircraft design it is possible
by first principles to locate problem areas within certain
portions of the flight envelope. Flutter is, for example, a
high speed problem, so is aeroelastic control reversal,
stalling goes with high incidence and so does buffeting.
Trim change problems are most prominent in transonic
flight and so on. These general rules afford the designer
some economy as he knows from the start where to con-
centrate his effort.
Unfortunately there are very few general rules which
would firmly pin cross-coupling into a predictable corner
of the flight envelope and permit the aerodynamicist to
forget the rest. As cross-coupling is primarily a problem of
structural integrity, we can perhaps ignore very low speeds,
but even then we must not overlook the possibility that
cross-coupling may here turn into a handling problem.
Even if we are permitted to ignore low speeds, the
remaining picture is far from simple. Speed, Mach number,
altitude, changes in loading and external configuration with
stores all interact in a complex pattern. In the final
analysis, cross-coupling difficulties are often located in
several different areas of the flight envelope. To locate
W. J. G. PINSKER THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF INERTIA CROSS-COUPLING
those in the first instance, theoretical work and some fa)
flight testing too must cover practically the full flight
envelope.
(Hi) Before the advent of cross-coupling, roll SIDESLIP
response clearance was concerned with two simple DURING
cases, steady rolling with full control and the rolling
pull out. It was quite adequate to treat these as
quasi-steady manoeuvres. When cross-coupling is
involved, one becomes concerned with transient con-
ditions, with shortlived peaks in sideslip and inci-
dence. These are sensitive not only just to the
amount of aileron used but equally to the manner in
which control is applied, how long it is applied and
how the manoeuvre is terminated. It is necessary,
therefore, at each flight condition to consider a whole range
of manoeuvres with a result that may look like Fig. 8(a).
It is even possible to find conditions where the answer does
not get progreissively worse, e.g. with the bank angle
through which the aircraft is rolled as in the case for 3/4
aileron in Fig. 8(a), so that a test made for the more
"severe" manoeuvre A would give an optimistic result,
failing to reveal the danger that would exist if the pilot had
terminated the manoeuvre earlier, i.e. if he had rolled
through a smaller bank angle.
The next parameter which must be equally thoroughly
scanned is normal acceleration, i.e. rolling pull out. Here
again the trend is often far from simple and we are not
allowed to use short cuts by looking, e.g. only at the
extremes. Fig. 8{b) gives a typical picture of peak sideslip
angles one obtains for a nominally identical roll
manoeuvre flown at different values of normal g. Testing
at the maximum required n could again give an optimistic
answer, as the most severe response may occur at a some-
what lower value of n. Similarly a test made at \g may
give the designer the false impression that by comparison
with \g flight things get better in this direction, whereas
one is, in fact, getting close to a precipice. The reasons for
this behaviour have been indicated earlier when we were
discussing autorotation.
The lesson is again that cross-coupling analysis and
flight testing must cover the whole of the manoeuvre
envelope as well as the flight envelope and it is imprudent
to trust in checks simply at some extreme points. With an
aircraft free from cross-coupling this was, of course, the
usual practice and an entirely safe one.
These then are the general principles governing inertia
cross-coupling. They guide the designer throughout the
development of a new design. The logical application of
these lessons has evolved in a now widely followed routine
which I shall now briefly outline.
In the project stage the designer will make a quick
assessment using the Phillips criteria or the charts in ref. 5
and estimated design data to gain a first impression where
his aircraft stands. In some cases this will suffice to dismiss
the problem altogether. In others it may indicate that
positive action is needed to have any hope of finishing with
an acceptable aircraft. Increase in fin size and fin strength
are two of the more obvious solutions.
When tunnel data and perhaps better estimates for the
aircraft's inertia distribution become available, these early
checks will have to be repeated and unless a positively
reassuring answer is obtained, the problem! has to be
tackled in detail. Response calculations will now be made
to explore the likely behaviour of the aircraft in all parts
of the flight envelope so that problem areas are located.
The designer will thus gain a reasonably detailed picture of
where the aircraft's limitations lie and must decide if these
could be substantially alleviated by further design modifi-
cations. He may also approach the customer for his air-
701
PEAK
ROLL
0MAX
DURATION OF AILERON
APPLICATION NORMAL ACCELERATION
Figure 8. (a) Typical variation of peak sideslip recorded
during various rolling manoeuvres, (b) Typical variation
of peak sideslip with n in otherwise identical roll manoeuvre.
craft and plead for relaxations in the manoeuvrability
requirements. For him, i.e. the designer, this is perhaps the
most attractive solution. In fact, during early work on this
problem we often found that cross-coupling only afflicted
an aircraft because it had an entirely unnecessary amount
of roll control power. Stops in the control circuit proved a
ready answer to this problem.
Once the design is frozen the final phase of work must
now be directed towards flight clearance. As soon as
possible conventional flight tests, but not at this stage
aileron rolls, will be made to obtain more realistic values
of the principal aerodynamic derivatives involved and
these will be fed back into the aerodynamics office to
update the computer. A large number of roll response
calculations will be made to establish a background from
which flight work on roll manoeuvres can be guided.
Starting with very moderate manoeuvres the flight-
manoeuvre envelope will now be gradually expanded.
From time to time, flight records from actual rolls will be
matched against corresponding computer solutions.
Usually this will again rea.uire some adjustment to the
aerodynamic "characteristics" represented on the
computer. Progressively confidence increases into the
capability of the computer to make reliable predictions.
These then are used to guide the test pilot when he
approaches the point of testing the demanded limiting
manoeuvres.
Once a computer model is established which gives
a satisfactory match with flight, it can then be used to fill
in at least part of the manoeuvre envelope, saving a good
deal of flight testing of what otherwise would be an endless
number of permutations.
4. CURES AND PALLIATIVES
When an aircraft has gone through the full cycle of
roll coupling clearance it will usually emerge with many
visible marks received in the process. The fin may have
been increased, perhaps more than once, structure may
have been strengthened, stops introduced to restrict aileron
at high speeds and pilots' notes will contain a page of
"don'ts".
Would it not have been possible, one may ask, to apply
a radical remedy right at the initial stages and remove
cross-coupling altogether as a problem and save all the
effort involved in this piecemeal approach? Unfortunately,
once the designer is committed to a configuration with the
type of mass distribution conducive to cross-coupling,
such a simple cure is hardly ever practical. From the
earlier discussion of the physical mechanism of cross-
coupling, the required measures are easily identified.
(/) Restricting inertia in pitch and increasing inertia in
roll, changing the mass distribution in other words. Clearly
this is controlled by general design and performance con-
siderations which leave the designer little room for
concessions of significant value to cross-coupling.
702 VOL. 73 THE AERONAUTICAL JOURNAL OF
(if) Increasing aerodynamic stability and especially n„
by a larger fin—there is no doubt that generosity in this
respect in the first place will pay handsomely in relieving
inertia cross-coupling troubles later on. A bare minimum
fin will always turn out to be false economy. Nevertheless,
when the inertia distribution is really adverse, the fin
required for cross-coupling to be completely suppressed,
may well be prohibitive.
(Hi) Restricting rolling performance itself. All work
on cross-coupling clearly suggests that with any aircraft
there is a range of roll rates within which it would be safe
from difficulties. Consequently, cross-coupling could be
positively controlled by appropriately limiting roll control
power. The question is then whether what remains is still
a useful fighting vehicle.
Cross-coupling has forced everybody concerned, the
aircraft designer, the certification authorities and the
Service alike to have second thoughts on roll control
requirements. Throughout the history of aviation, everyone
was so much preoccupied with the problem of getting
enough control, that it had never occurred to anyone that
it is possible in this struggle to get more than is really
needed.
In fact, the question of defining a sensible lower limit
for rolling power is still very far from resolved. If one
works out theoretically what roll control is required to
perform adequately all the missions of an aircraft, one
arrives at surprisingly small roll rates, 40-60° /s typically.
This contrasts sharply with the demands of pilots who are
never fully happy on a fighter with less than 150°/s,
although 100°/s has been accepted under the pressure
of cross-coupling. The benefit to the aircraft designer of
relaxing roll demands is patently obvious. We must help
him by asking only for what is really needed.
(iv) One might consider alternatively to design an
airframe which can stand up to even the most vicious air-
craft response. Apart from being impracticable this would
simply turn a structural problem into a handling night-
mare. The prospect of autorotation with simultaneous yaw
divergence will hardly be cherished by any pilot, even if
he knows the structure can take it.
(v) Finally we may turn to autostabilisation, the
panacea of so many current stability and control problems.
At first sight it may seem surprising to learn that very
little use has been made so far of the autostabiliser in the
field of inertia cross-coupling. The reason is that the con-
ventional autostabiliser is a small authority device and
the power under its command is insufficient to make more
than a token contribution to cross-coupling. An auto-
stabiliser with authority over full rudder might be a
different proposition, provided it can be made safe against
malfunctioning. At the moment no designer will contem-
plate such a solution which may well raise as many
(system borne) safety problems as it sets out to cure.
Ultimately, however, autostabilisation may become the
solution to cross-coupling. Theoretically it certainly can.
ROYAL AERONAUTICAL SOCIETY AUGUST 1969
It looks as if for the time being inertia cross-coupling •
will be with us as a flying problem as long as we wish to I
operate fast manoeuvrable fighting aircraft. It will remain •
a major preoccupation with the aircraft designer, with the
aerodynamicist and most of all with the test pilot.
5. CONCLUSIONS
Let us now try to summarise what \\ decades of life
with inertia cross-coupling have taught us. Inertia cross-
coupling can affect the aircraft in more than one way.
Yaw divergence in rolling manoeuvres is perhaps the most
common form met in practice. In flight at low or negative
g, there is also the potential danger of autorotation.
Thirdly, rudder application or asymmetric engine failure
can result in large amplitude normal acceleration excur-
sions.
What all these phenomena have in common is that
they result from the interference of gyroscopic forces with
the conventional behaviour of the aircraft. The most
adverse features to make an aircraft prone to cross-
coupling are a long fuselage heavily loaded from nose to
tail and marginal directional stability.
Cross-coupling is a form of resonance and becomes
rapidly more dangerous when the appropriate critical roll
rate is exceeded in aileron manoeuvres.
The main difficulty in controlling inertia cross-coupling
in the design stage is the complexity of the analysis and
more important the inordinate degree to which this
phenomenon is sensitive to small changes in the aero-
dynamic data, which in an aircraft free from inertia
coupling would have quite negligible consequences.
Once performance demands force a designer to adopt
an aircraft shape conducive to inertia cross-coupling,
there is no practicable simple measure which would allow
the whole problem to be completely controlled. The only
practical alternative is to face up to a cautious and often
lengthy process of design analysis and development
testing by which the safety limits of the design are estab-
lished. The cornerstones on which the designer builds in
this process are the data collected in flight tests and their
usefulness depends critically on the precision with which
these are conducted by the test pilot.
References
1. PHILLIPS, W. H. Effect of Steady Rolling on Longitudinal
and Lateral Stability. NACA TN No 1627, June 1948.
2. ETKIN, B. Dynamics of Flight, pp 304-308. John Wiley
and Sons, New York, 1959.
3. PINSKER, W. J. G. Preliminary Note on the Effect of
Inertia Cross-coupling on Aircraft Response in Rolling
Manoeuvres. ARC Current Paper No 435.
4. PINSKER, W. J. G. Critical Flight Conditions and> Loads
Resulting from Inertia Cross-coupling and Aerodynamic
Stability Deficiences. AGARD Report No 107, April-
May 1957.
5. PINSKER, W. J. G. Charts of Peak Amplitudes in Inci-
dence and Sideslip in Rolling Manoeuvres Due to Inertia
Cross-coupling. RAE Report No 2064, April 1958.