Which was the first aircraft with a trim tab?

[rjtjrt]

I had never thought of it before, but early aircraft did not have a trim system.
When was it first used?

[megan]

Don't know the first, but certainly well used in WWI.

[onetrack]

Look up Anton Flettner, he was the inventor of the trim tab during WW1.
I have no idea of the exact make and model of aircraft that it was first used on.

Anton Flettner was an exceptionally gifted aeronautical engineer, and he produced the first workable helicopter prototype, years before Sikorsky did.

Flettner produced the first successful production helicopter, the FI 265, for the Nazis - designing in it 1937 and putting it into production in May 1939, a full year before Sikorsky produced his VS-300 prototype.
Flettner went on to produce the vastly-improved FI 282 Kolibri, designing it in 1940 and putting it into production in 1942.

If it wasn't for the Allies getting the upper hand in the war from 1943-44 onwards, and bombing the BMW and Flettner production facilities into ruins, the FI-282 would have been produced in serious numbers. One thousand were on order, but only 32 were built.

[Innominate]

The Vimy didn't have elevator trim, so when Alcock flew the Atlantic with Brown he had a peice of elastic to help ease the forces on the control column - but it allegedly proved too short.

[megan]

Curiosity aroused, I found the following. Not adjustable in flight, but it did provide a means of trimming.

https://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1910/1910%20-%200255.html

[onetrack]

Don't know the first, but certainly well used in WWI.

Megan, do you have a reference for that? I cannot find any WW1 aircraft actually fitted with trim tabs as we know them, although I understand that some had various forms of control surfaces stabilisers.
On the SE5 and SE5A the entire tailplane pivoted on the front spar, and the alteration in the AoA of the tailplane was changed by the winding of the "trim wheel" on the LHS of the cockpit - which trim wheel operated a chain, that spun a threaded cog on an acme threaded shaft, contained within the hollow sternpost.
The movement of the cog up or down the threaded shaft changed the relative position of the tailplane rear spar.
I can only find references to trim tabs appearing in aircraft designs from the early 1920's.

[rjtjrt]

Interesting info.
I am also interested in which WW1 aircraft had a trim system of any sort, be it trim tab or any other system. Was it commonly found in most WW1 aircraft, or only after a certain date, or in one country first?
John

[megan]

onetrack, I was a bit confused I admit. The OP's heading was "tab", but he then went on to askbut early aircraft did not have a trim system.
When was it first used? which was the question I answered. Sorry for the confusion. Not aware of any WWI that used a tab, but not saying there weren't, I just don't have a clue.

The WWI SE5A and Bristol F2B were two that used an adjustable stabiliser for trim.

Should anyone want to read up on the subject, there is plenty of reading to be had at https://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive Search for "longitudinal stability" during the period 1909 to 1920. A February 1913 article had the following to say The problem of speed maintenance is fundamental to the subject of longitudinal stability. If as has been suggested in the recent " Thoughts on Stability and Control," the stability problem, so far as it is a definable problem at all, is divisible in such a way as to make longitudinal stability a problem apart then the matter Is be settled is whether the stability is to be of the "compass" or " weathercock" order. That is to say, whether the axis of the machine is to remain horizontal always or whether it is to tilt and dip with the trend of the wind. In the article in question, sensitive weathercock longitudinal stability was regarded as necessary to the realisation of lateral stability, and the argument has this much claim to interest that, when analysed, all modern machines are built to provide "weathercock" longitudinal stability, although not necessarily in a very sensitive degree.

The fore-and-aft dihedral is a device to this end. It the angle of incidence to the relative wind exceeds the ordinary, the c.p. of the system travels towards the rear, and the axis dips weather-cockwise into the wind—vice versa, when the angle of incidence becomes too fine. The result is automatic speed maintenance for at any given angle of incidence the relative air speed required for support is a fixed quantity.

It might well be argued, therefore, of what use is an air-speed indicator on such a system; or, rather, what causes it to as-time the importance that makes a pioneer like Henry Farman regard its use as imperative. The answer, to my mind is simply that the modern desire for variable horizontal speed has led to a tendency to abuse the elevator, which in its proper function is a device for damping out oscillations and for the initiation of special manoeuvres, but has since become the means whereby the machine is held in some other than the normal attitude in order that it may fly horizontally at some other than its normal speed. In so far as the speed range indicates reserve power, it provides a quality that is second to none among the things fundamental to safety in flying, but there are other ways of demonstrating reserve power than by variable horizontal speed. The disadvantage of this practice is that pilots may be tempted to use the elevator to force the machine to maintain horizontal flight when the engine is not pulling properly, thus using up their reserve power on the mere act of flying, and leaving none for the manoeuvres of turning and ascent. It is, I think, largely because of the habit of using the elevator in the capacity of a gear-box that there is so great a demand for the extended use of the air-speed indicator which tells a pilot when he is departing from his normal relative velocity.

https://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1913/1913 - 0209.html