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Aircraft flight control surfaces are aerodynamic devices allowing a pilot to adjust and control the aircraft's flight attitude. Development of an effective set of flight control surfaces was a critical advance in the development of aircraft. Early efforts at fixed-wing aircraft design succeeded in generating sufficient lift to get the aircraft ...
A typical aircraft's primary flight controls in motion. A conventional fixed-wing aircraft flight control system (AFCS) consists of flight control surfaces, the respective cockpit controls, connecting linkages, and the necessary operating mechanisms to control an aircraft's direction in flight. Aircraft engine controls are also considered ...
A flight control mode or flight control law is a computer software algorithm that transforms the movement of the yoke or joystick, made by an aircraft pilot, into movements of the aircraft control surfaces. The control surface movements depend on which of several modes the flight computer is in. In aircraft in which the flight control system is ...
In spite of effective control surfaces, many early aircraft that lacked a stabilising empennage were virtually unflyable. Even so-called "tailless aircraft" usually have a tail fin (usually a vertical stabiliser). Heavier-than-air aircraft without any kind of empennage (such as the Northrop B-2) are rare, and generally use specially shaped ...
A control system includes control surfaces which, when deflected, generate a moment (or couple from ailerons) about the cg which rotates the aircraft in pitch, roll, and yaw. For example, a pitching moment comes from a force applied at a distance forward or aft of the cg, causing the aircraft to pitch up or down.
In aeronautics, air brakes or speed brakes are a type of flight control surface used on an aircraft to increase the drag on the aircraft. [ 1 ] When extended into the airstream, air brakes cause an increase in the drag on the aircraft. When not in use, they conform to the local streamlined profile of the aircraft in order to help minimize drag ...
The wing configuration of a fixed-wing aircraft (including both gliders and powered aeroplanes) is its arrangement of lifting and related surfaces. Aircraft designs are often classified by their wing configuration. For example, the Supermarine Spitfire is a conventional low wing cantilever monoplane of straight elliptical planform with moderate ...
Aircraft principal axes. An aircraft in flight is free to rotate in three dimensions: yaw, nose left or right about an axis running up and down; pitch, nose up or down about an axis running from wing to wing; and roll, rotation about an axis running from nose to tail. The axes are alternatively designated as vertical, lateral (or transverse ...