Questions tagged [flight-controls]
Use for cockpit controls (trim, yoke, etc). Use [control-surfaces] for the surfaces that actually move.
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Terminal pitch angle guidance law [closed]
In the graph below, a flying body is guided by applying a commanded pitch angle (control input) to approach a certain target position.
I've tried to set pitch command = LOS angle, so I calculate LOS ...
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What are the key differentiating factors between the flight control systems employed in unmanned drones and those utilized in piloted aerial vehicles?
"I've come across open-source projects like ArduPilot that are commonly used with microcontrollers like Pixhawk for unmanned aircraft. However, I'm unsure whether these systems can be adapted for ...
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How elevator and ailerons affect attack and roll angles?
I was trying to model the flight of an aircraft and i need some function that expresses the change of attack and roll angle in function of the elevator and ailerons (respectively).
Does anyone have an ...
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How to slow down while maintaining altitude
Is reducing throttle/power already enough? Or do I have to adjust the pitch as well? If so, I suppose pitching up as well? If pitching up is needed as well, is it because as speed decrease, there is ...
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Are there guidelines for how rudder pedals should be shaped?
I've seen a lot of rudder pedal design, from simple welded steel tubes to more complex branded aluminum forgings.
They all seem to work equally well in my experience, and I've never found myself ...
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Boeing 777 PCU Synchronization of Duplicate Hydraulic Actuators for Control Surface Deflection
I have a question regarding the redundancy of hydraulic systems used to deflect the control surfaces of a Boeing 777 aircraft (or the like). We know that "the elevators, ailerons, and flaperons ...
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Why do the spoilers on the 737 only deploy to the flight detent after a flaps up landing?
Following an all flaps up (no flap) landing, the SPEED BRAKE
lever will not move beyond the FLIGHT DETENT and the spoilers
will not fully deploy (for reference this is stated in the Fcom 9.20.14 rev ...
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How far apart are the rudder pedals on a Piper PA-28?
How far is the left rudder pedal from the right pedal on a Piper PA-28? I assume the left and right seats have equal pedal spacing, but if not, the left seat is what I would like to know.
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Can engines with a fixed nozzle in the angle of attack have the same effect as the thrust vectoring?
If the figure above represents a missile at the angle of attack and we vector resolution the thrust output from the nozzle, we can see that the thrust is divided into sine and cosine parts. Does the ...
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Why is only one rudder deflected on this Su 35?
Why does the aircraft has only one rudder deflected in this picture?
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How to prevent altitude loss or keep flight path angle constant while doing aileron maneuver?
I am trying to perform an aileron roll maneuver for an un-manned aircraft in a simulation. The lateral control architecture is that I am controlling roll rate (stability) with aileron stick and side-...
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Forward Slip - Which speed to maintain?
Which is the proper speed to be maintained during a Forward Slip? Near Vfe or Vref? Which one will let you lower with the shorter ground distance and why?
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What causes the "dead band" phenomenon during takeoff on the Boeing 737?
During takeoff, the Boeing 737 encounters a distinctive "dead band" phenomenon after the initial pitch reaches approximately 10 degrees. Essentially, a slight increase in back pressure is ...
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ST-901 GPSS Converter diagrams
I'm looking for pin-out diagrams for the S-Tec ST-901 GPSS Converter. This unit will go between a Garmin GPS400W GPS Navigator and an S-Tec 50 autopilot.
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Pitch control in PX4 autopilot
I am trying to translate controller diagram of fixed wing px4 attitude control into mathematical form. While going through the controller diagram Fixed-Wing Attitude Controller looking into PX4 github ...
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What control inputs to make if a wing falls off?
If a wing is severed due to structural damage or from a mid-air collision, what is the best control input to make?
I would think opposite aileron and rudder, i.e. if right wing falls off, input full ...
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How to convert body frame-relative aerodynamic coefficients to wind frame-relative aerodynamic coefficients
I have a rocket flight simulator that takes in aerodynamic coefficients defined relative to the vehicle body frame axes (Cx, Cy, Cz). These are in a lookup table based on mach.
I have some aerodynamic ...
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Why (and how) do aircraft rudders center themselves without input?
Why (and how) do almost all aircraft rudders have some sort of way of re-centering the rudder when there's no input being made? For example, if you wanted to move the flight controls (fly by wire ...
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What safeguards are there against unintended inputs?
A modern passenger jet suddenly encounters some very turbulent air. The captain, who was just enjoying his toilet break, rushes back into the cockpit. Just as he's about to sit down the plane drops, ...
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A plane is flying at constant velocity in equilibrium, then pitches up. What happens?
This might be a dumb question. And I could probably work it out myself. But here goes! Assume a plane is flying along at some velocity $v_0$ at angle-of-attack $a_0$, using throttle setting $tr_0$. ...
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Why do some aircraft's flight control surfaces not droop when hydraulic power is taken away? [duplicate]
Analyzing a bunch of different photos of airliners sitting at Gates, I've noticed that some have flight controls that droop (due to no hydraulic power) and sometimes they stay leveled. Why is this?
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How can angle of attack for a T-tail configuration be 21 degrees without stalling and also be flying at its trimmed condition?
I was reading a paper that looks at deep stall for T-tail configurations, and figure 2 suggests that the first trim condition for the aircraft in question occurs at approximately 21 degrees. Surely ...
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Aircraft spoilers (flight spoilers, GLD)
Wondering if anyone has any examples on how a spoiler affects the Cl and Cd of an airfoil.
For example, Xfoil has plenty of data on plain flaps up to 45 degrees deflection but nothing about spoilers. ...
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What is the essential purpose of making three control laws in Airbus aircraft?
Airbus has normal law, alternate law and direct law. What was the need for specifically making each of these three laws? What benefit does each one offer over the others?
Also, why does Airbus degrade ...
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Why do autopilot controllers use $\theta$ as the input signal rather than $\gamma$?
In particular, referencing how the Matlab/Simulink controller here uses $\theta$ (absolute pitch angle), rather than $\gamma$ (flight path angle). (Autopilot controller starts at 59:26)
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Controlling a plane only by shifting weight
Suppose that a plane lost the ability to use all the control surfaces on the wings (e.g., flaps and ailerons). Can the weight inside the plane be shifted to help maneuver the aircraft?
For example, ...
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Immobile pressure-sensitive stick [duplicate]
I was reading the Japanese sci-fi novel Yukikaze (greatly recommended btw) again and I came across a detail that describes that the stick of the fighter plane the main character is flying is fixed in ...
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What is the name of the pedal assembly in an aircraft cockpit?
I'm proofreading a document about rudder control systems and client insists on calling the pedal assembly under the pilot's feet the "rudder". Would this ever be used?
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How do flight controls work in tandem wing configuration?
If I understand it correctly, the usual configuration with tandem wings is that the front wing has ailerons - controls the roll. And the rear wing (a bit smaller than the front one) has elevators and ...
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Do the A220's controls have force feedback for dual pilot inputs?
Airbus's 3x0 series designs have often been criticized following incidents and accidents over the relative lack of haptic feedback on the control sticks. Dual input conditions give a visual (and aural?...
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Are there any recreational gliders with a yoke?
All gliders / sailplanes seem to use a single central stick to manipulate the primary control surfaces. In other airplane types, we also find yokes and sidesticks. Are there any glider designs, ...
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Can a prospective pilot be negated their certification because of too big/small hands?
Sorry if this seems a too naive question, I'm a complete newbie in this field. The question came into my mind when reading this answer from another thread (second picture).
There you see a photo of ...
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Where can a digital reading of the pitch/attitude of a plane be found?
Where can a digital reading of the pitch of plane be found?
E.g on Microsoft flight simulator, on the attitude dial, the pitch of the plane (e.g 10 degrees up above horizon) has to be manually read ...
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Are spoilers primary or secondary flight control surfaces?
The literature on primary and secondary flight controls is very contradictory.
My professor provided this image from which I infer that spoilers are used for primary flight control:
Also, here it ...
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How does an aileron actuator work considering the following?
My question is how does an aileron work considering it rotates around a fixed point and the actuator arm moves in a straight line. If what is shown in the first picture I have provided is true, then ...
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Washout filter for pitch and roll damper
Washout filters are generally described in context of yaw channel where they allow the turn command signal to not be dampened by the yaw damper in the feedback circuit as the low frequency signal is ...
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Could a trim system conceivably manipulate only primary surfaces?
Most airplanes' trim systems manipulate a tab associated with a primary surface. For example, a pitch trim tab (secondary surface) is attached to the elevators (primary surface) and will change the ...
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Why do many small planes allow flight control from either side?
(From Wikimedia Commons)
Unless the plane is being used for training, what's the point of having flight controls on both sides? As far as I know, it's not common to have a copilot on planes like this (...
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Without wind, would a plane go straight if the pilot let go of the controls?
If you let go of the steering wheel of a (properly maintained) car, it will typically go in a straight or nearly straight line. Would a powered airplane in no-wind conditions do the same thing?
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Can an ionized airflow be controlled magnetically?
I am thinking about the possibility of replacing the control surfaces of an aircraft with thrust vectoring. The most straightforward form of that would be mechanically adaptable nozzles which ...
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Why do turbo props have their engine controls like condition levers next to each other when other planes have them mixed up?
Comparing cockpits of the CRJ and the ATR. I noticed that turbo props have the throttle and condition lever next to each other. When the crj has just a throttle. and then some switches for fuel ...
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Why are there no protection symbols (=) for high AOA protection on Airbus aircraft?
Green protection symbols (=) are displayed for many protections on Airbus aircraft, such as for bank, pitch, and high speed protection. However, there is no such symbol for high AOA protection. Rather,...
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What is the purpose of quickly moving the speedbrake lever on the 757 during rollout?
I found two videos where the PF quickly moves the speedbrake lever during rollout on the 757. Note that they are already deployed. Here are the links: video 1 and video 2 (out of view). What is the ...
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Pilatus PC-12 vertical tail size
Does anyone know what the dimensions / surface area of the vertical stabilizer is on that plane? Additionally, does anyone know the approximate tail volume and its coefficient?
Could not find it ...
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How Do Pilots Account for Weight Shift?
What I mean by this question is cases of airliners or private jets.
You have possibilities of luggage shifting mid-flight, people changing seats (occasional but it does happen), and on private jets, ...
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What difficulties may you find when controlling an aircraft with one engine on fire?
I curious that from a pilot perspective, what do they really feel when they experience an engine failure that caused by fire ? Can they easily maneuver the aircraft anymore, or will their situational ...
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Did the F-16 have an AoA limiter since the very first variant?
Did the F-16 have an AoA limiter since the very first variant or was it added later?
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Which Aircraft Utilise Fly-By-Light Controls?
Although I can find reference to the Eurocopter EC135 being a test bed for fly-by-light, I am not sure if it has entered production with the system [1]. The only confirmed aircraft I can find is the ...
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how are the properties of canards affected when they are angled compared to normal canards?
So i recently saw an image of the natf-23 a modified(more like completely redesigned) yf-23 and one of the interesting things it had were canards that were angled. What would the benefits and drawback ...
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How does the fly-by-wire on the new F/A-18 Super Hornet work and what is it maintaining?
I am trying to replicate the fly-by-wire (FBW) system of the Super Hornet for a game called SimplePlanes. I was wondering if it is maintaining a certain $g$ number, turn rate, angle of attack, or a ...
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