Austrian authorities have certified a “turbulence canceling” system on a Shark Aero 600 two-place LSA, but the company that developed the system says it can be installed on any fixed-wing aircraft during manufacturing. Turbulence Solutions has been working on the system for seven years and the Shark was its first certification. The system uses an extended pitot-esque sensor to pick up air pressure variations ahead of the plane. Those signals are sent to a processor that crunches them into the appropriate deflection of a trailing-edge flap that occurs just in time to cancel out the bump.
“Turbulence Canceling is able to reduce turbulence loads felt by passengers by more than 80% making use of counteracting control surface deflections,” the company says. The certification was approved in April. Turbulence Solutions says the system makes the tiny Shark 600 feel like a much larger aircraft in turbulence and that makes it safer to fly in the bumps. “The result? A smoother, more controlled flight experience, even in demanding conditions,” Shark Aero said in a Facebook post. “This isn’t about fixing turbulence. It’s about redefining what pilots and passengers expect from flight.” The system is an option on all of Shark’s models.
Cool idea! One of the very real problems with light aircraft is turbulence. My 177RG is a comparative lightweight, with light wing loading and is miserable in the zone between light and moderate turbulence. So much so, I became curious about the G loading and was shocked to see 2.1G during big bumps. Moving into a RV8 and the very same bumps become 1.3G.
The C177 RG has always been a favorite of mine, however it does utilize a laminar-flow airfoil. It, along with other aircraft such as the Piper Comanche, tend react rather “briskly” to turbulence versus turbulent-flow airfoils…
I wonder the extra cost. I will be in the market for a new LSA after selling my trusty Cessna 180K.
We are taking a close look at this type of system for our S-LSA in development. Our design is a four-place, but we need to see & understand numerous technical particulars of this system; we (or the system OEM) would need to be able to tune the control laws as appropriate to the aerodynamic & structural characteristics of the aircraft, lest such a system accidently excite adverse aeroservoelastic behavior in any phase of flight.
And yes, cost would be a factor as well; there is absolutely zero doubt that this is not a ‘cheap’ upgrade.
Either way, it is a cool system!
Brilliant! Like an active noise suppression headset, but for airplane wings instead of human ears.