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In aeronautics, a spoiler (sometimes called a lift spoiler or lift dumper) is a device which intentionally reduces the lift component of an airfoil in a controlled way. Most often, spoilers are plates on the top surface of a wing that can be extended upward into the airflow to spoil the streamline flow.
An early use of spoilers augmenting small ailerons, known as guide ailerons, was in the Northrop P-61 Black Widow night fighter. The spoilers allowed wider-span flaps for a lower landing speed. [3] The B-52 Stratofortress also had spoilers augmenting small ailerons, known as feeler ailerons. These ailerons provided control forces to the pilot.
Spoilers might act as air brakes, but are not pure air brakes as they also function as lift-dumpers or in some cases as roll control surfaces. Air brakes are usually surfaces that deflect outwards from the fuselage (in most cases symmetrically on opposing sides) into the airstream in order to increase form-drag.
The FAA publicly identified an “unsafe condition” that could result in a “loss of control” of certain Boeing 737 Max jets because of “nonconforming” installation of spoiler control wires.
Often, characteristics of both spoilers and air brakes are desirable and are combined - most modern airliner jets feature combined spoiler and air brake controls. On landing, the deployment of these spoilers ("lift dumpers") causes a significant reduction in wing lift, so the weight of the aircraft is transferred from the wings to the undercarriage.
In other words, if you picked a flight at random and boarded in that time period, your chance of dying in a plane crash or a terrorist act approached one in 14 million.
Spoilers are intended to create drag and reduce lift by "spoiling" the airflow over the wing. A spoiler is much larger than a Gurney flap, and can be retracted. Spoilers are usually installed mid chord on the upper surface of the wing, but may also be installed on the lower surface of the wing as well.
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