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Old 15th April 2016 | 10:47
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keith williams
 
Joined: Jan 2011
Posts: 660
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From: England
Extension of trailing edge flaps will produce (at least) two competing effects:

Effect 1. The CP will move aft, causing a nose down pitching moment.

You may wish to argue that with CP ahead of CG the result will actually be a reduction in the nose up pitching moment (about the CG). But if the aircraft is originally in a trimmed condition, the result of the aft CP shift would be a nose down pitching moment.

Effect 2. If the tailplane is within the downwash from the mainplanes,the flap extension will cause the downwash over the tailplane to increase. This will cause a nose up pitching moment.

The overall result will depend upon the relative magnitudes of these two effects.
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