Flutter qualification of transport aircraft with store suspension

The methodology backed by relevant analysis results, flutter flight test (FFT) results, and their interpretation is presented for the flutter qualification of a transport aircraft with wing mounted external store suspension. Before the flight tests, extensive flutter analyses are performed by MSC/Nastran for different weight and CG configurations to reduce the number of costly FFTs based on the results of flutter analysis and decide on the aircraft test configurations. Analysis results and test results indicate that although the flutter speeds of the modified aircraft are lowered compared to the basic aircraft, the overall damping of the wing vibration modes stay above the values required by the flutter regulation MIL-A-8870C.