Originally Posted by
FCeng84
I concur with your suggestion that a floating stabilizer would be impacted by the elevators in much that same manner as a tab-driven trailing edge control surface. Airplane nose up elevator deflection puts loads on the stabilizer in the opposite direction and thus would drive a floating stabilizer in the airplane nose down direction. For small motions, elevator has about half as much pitch authority as stabilizer on a degree for degree basis. The story is not quite that simple, however. Below are a few factors to consider:
The elevator is hinged at the leading edge, so the servo tab mounted at the trailing edge has the mechanical advantage or leverage to force the elevator to move up or down.
The stabilizer is hinged at the trailing edge with the actuator at the leading edge, so the position of the elevator mounted at the trailing edge of the stabilizer is going to have little or no effect on the position of a free floating stabilizer.