Flight tests, performances, and flight certification of a twin-engine light aircraft

This paper deals with flight-test activities performed on the P2006T, a twin-engine light aircraft recently designed and produced by Tecnam. Research activities and flight tests have been conducted during the flight certification of the P2006T for the normal category under European regulation CS-23. All the acquired data and flight results presented have been focused on both aircraft certification and aircraft performance, stability, and flight quality measurements. The data have been acquired through light, accurate, and reliable flight instrumentation available at the University of Naples “Federico II” department of aerospace engineering. Some flight data about aircraft leveled speed, stall speed, climb characteristics, and ground performances (takeoff and landing) will be presented. After preliminary flight tests, winglets have been designed and added to the final configuration in order to obtain good climb performances in one-engine inoperative conditions. Accurate stall tests have been performed in all configurations, and the influence of both the entry rate and the load factor on stall speed have been highlighted. Excellent ground performances have been measured with short takeoff and landing distances compared with similar airplanes. All measured flight performances can be considered very good for this aircraft category and have been used to demonstrate aircraft safety and to obtain CS-23 certification.