During the process of aircraft design, the mathematical model of pilot control behavior characteristics is always used to predict aircraft flying qualities （FQ）. This is one of the important methods to avoid pilot-aircraft adverse coupling. In order to study the FQ criterion based on closed-loop pilot-aircraft systems, first, an experimental database is built, which includes 40 aircraft dynamics configurations and the corresponding flight simulation results. Second, the mathematical pilot models with a set of different aircraft configurations are obtained by this experimental database. Then, two FQ criteria, Neal-Smith criterion and Moscow Aviation Institute （MAI） criterion, are analyzed. And the relationship between the FQ level evaluated by actual pilot and the parameters of closed-loop pilot-aircraft systems is studied. Finally, an improved criterion of aircraft FQ is built based on the above two criteria. This new criterion is further used to predict FQ for four new aircraft dynamics configurations, and the prediction results verify its accuracy and practicability.
