UAS flight test for safety and for efficiency

Manned aircraft that operate in the National Airspace System (NAS) typically undergo certification flight test to ensure they meet a prescribed level of safety-dependent on their category-before they are able to enter service [for example, Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) advisory circular (AC) 25-7C is the flight-test guide for certification of transport-category airplanes]. With the integration of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) into the NAS, in the future some type of certification flight test may ultimately be required, however, even lacking such a requirement UAS manufacturers can find value in flight testing UASs using familiar experimental and certification flighttest procedures, the results of which can enhance the safety of the design, the safety of the operation, and/or the efficiency of the operation. In this paper, selected applications of flight-test procedures to the development and operation of UASs are demonstrated using a rotorcraft UAS (a multirotor) and a surrogate for a fixed-wing UAS. The limited, selected flight tests shown here reveal areas for design improvements to potentially enhance safety, provide insights into UAS and manned-aircraft equipage differences, enable potentially safer operational flight profiles, and facilitate moreefficient flight regimes (e.g., optimal flight profiles to maximize a UAS's flight time). These sample studies show promise for the use of conventional flight-test techniques in the design of UAS flight procedures and in the design of the UAS itself.