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Old 25th Jan 2006, 12:30
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John Farley

Do a Hover - it avoids G
 
Join Date: Oct 1999
Location: Chichester West Sussex UK
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Td&h

With manual controls the designer needs a bit of control design expertise to keep the forces on ailerons lighter than v squared.

Typically you need to put a tab on the aileron itself which moves in the opposite direction to the surface. So aileron up tab down. This lightens the force to displace the aileron. Commonly known as a ‘balance tab’ or‘geared tab’ .There are also ‘spring tabs’ where the linkage driving the geared tab is ‘spongy’ (incorporates a spring) and can be used to further fine tune the forces left to the pilot.

The advantages of the spring tabs (which made the previously heavy ailerons on the Meteor a joy after they were fitted) is that the spring blows off a bit as speed increases so the designer can make the ailerons super light at low speed (where the spring strut acts as if it is rigid and so gives max tab deflection). At high speed the spring looses the battle and does not move the tab so far thus increasing the stick forces.

If you want to make a control heavier than v squared you again fit a tab to the trailing edge but make it work in the same direction as the surface so making it artificially heavy. Known as an ‘anti-balance’ tab.

If you have ordinary power controls (without fly by wire) you just have a ‘q’ feel device which knows the IAS and increases the artificial spring centering forces by fiddling with the position of the fixed end of the spring and hence changing the effective spring rate that the pilot is opposing.

Regards
JF
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