Development of a flight data system and experimental determination of aerodynamic loads on a wing spar

An aftermarket Arduino-based flight data instrumentation package was developed for a Diamond DA20-A1 Katana aircraft. This package, consisting of a digital compass, pressure sensors, a GPS receiver, and three auxiliary string potentiometers will be capable of measuring and recording the pilot control surface inputs and the aircraft response to those inputs. The designed instrumentation package will be used to record flight data of the DA20-A1 Katana over a range of flight manouevres common to flight training. Using this data, an aerodynamic load model and a time dependent load history will be generated of the aircraft wing spar allowing a concurrent viscoelastic analysis to be conducted.