Flight mechanics is a systematic and comprehensive subject in the field of aircraft design, which studies the laws and characteristics of aircraft motion based on aerodynamics. Widely used in stall mobile fighters, unmanned combat aircraft, large transport aircraft, large passenger aircraft and other fields. Flight mechanics is mainly developing towards the integration of aerodynamics, structure, control and flight mechanics. By establishing integrated design technology and method, the design goal of optimal dynamic characteristics and mission capability of aircraft can be achieved, and the special flight mechanics problems involved in new concept aircraft can be solved. Famous experts in the field of flight mechanics include Academician Chen Shizhun and Academician Zhuang Fenggan.

Flight mechanics is the study of the force and trajectory of aircraft flying in the air. Generally speaking, it is to study the stress of the aircraft during flight, how to maintain the required flight attitude, and how to adjust the flight state and trajectory. . Flight mechanics is a very professional research and in-depth application in the field of aircraft flight control based on aerodynamics. In a narrow sense, traditional flight mechanics mainly studies the motion laws and characteristics of aircraft with mechanical principles, which is a branch of mechanics. However, in a broad sense, the motion characteristics of an aircraft are closely related to the aerodynamic force, engine thrust, elastic deformation of the aircraft structure and aircraft handling, which directly determines the overall characteristics, mission capability and operational requirements of the aircraft and becomes the starting point and destination of aircraft design. Therefore, flight mechanics is gradually developing into a systematic and comprehensive discipline in the field of aircraft design.

At present, foreign flight mechanics research mainly serves the design and development of new aircraft, that is, based on the design and development needs of advanced new concept aircraft, aiming at its new technical characteristics, research on flight mechanics related theories, methods and technical issues is carried out. Due to the highly nonlinear coupling characteristics of aerodynamics/structure/control/motion of modern advanced aircraft, on the basis of solving the traditional performance and flying quality problems, foreign flight mechanics research mainly studies the integrated design technology and method of flight mechanics/aerodynamics/structure mechanics/flight control to meet the needs of advanced aircraft design and development. The specific research contents include aerodynamic/flight dynamics integrated calculation technology of unsteady aerodynamic characteristics, bifurcation analysis technology of nonlinear flight dynamics characteristics and continuous design technology of control law, flight simulation and simulation technology, free flight and simulated flight experiment technology in wind tunnel, lock-ratio prototype flight test and full-aircraft flight test technology.