Experimental Study on the Attitude of Civil Aircraft Ditching with High Horizontal Tail Configuration

Abstract The airplane must meet the airworthiness requirements if certification with ditching provisions is requested. The probable behavior of the airplane ditching must be investigated by model tests or by comparison with airplanes of similar configuration. In this paper, aircraft with high horizontal tail configuration is considered as a research object, then the attitudes of civil aircraft in ditching is studied through a scaled model verification experiment. On this basis, this paper researches the effects of different parameters after ditching into the water, such as initial pitch angle, flap slat configuration and sinking speed. The research results in this paper can help to determine the ditching attitudes and parameters and thus develop strategies for ditching.