The single shooting method is used identify optimal manoeuvres in the lateral dynamics
of partially-supported wings of very low stiffness. The aim is to identify actuation
strategies in the design of aircraft manoeuvres in which large wing deflections can substantially
modify the vehicle structural and aerodynamic features. Preliminary studies are
presented for a representative high-altitude long-endurance aircraft wing in hinged confi-
guration. Nonlinear effects due to large deflections are captured coupling a geometrically
exact beam model with an unsteady vortex lattice method for the aerodynamics. The
optimal control problem is solved via a gradient-based algorithm. When lowering the wing
stiffness, the nonlinearities connected to the system — such as the fore-shortening effect
due to large bending deflections — increase the wing lateral stability but at the same time
they also reduce aileron authority. The single-shooting optimisation is shown to capture
these features and to provide satisfactory results, not only when refining a predetermined
actuation law but also when designing it from zero.