Back to results
US 4,381,091 AGranted
Control-effect enhancement of tiltable aircraft stabilizing member
AssigneeBritish Aerospace Public Limited Company
InventorBarry V. Pegram
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
An aircraft having, for example, a tailplane (4, 5) at least part of which is movable with reference to a fuselage (1) to effect control requires the control effect to be enhanced in a certain control position. Accordingly, fixed vanes (8, 9) are provided on the fuselage forward of the tailplane to form a substantially continuous leading edge root extension only when the tailplane is in a given control position.
Claims2
An aircraft including:
- a fixed body;
- a tail plane having a leading edge region, mounted on said body for tilting, control-effecting movement about a generally spanwise axis spaced from said leading edge region;
- a control-enhancing member, having a trailing edge region, fixedly extending from said body ahead of said tail plane and having a span less than that of said tail plane, said trailing edge region of said control-enhancing member being shaped to match only a root portion of said tail plane leading edge region, said regions being positioned to lie in substantially continuous closely matching relationship only in a predetermined tilted position of said tail plane in which enhancement of the control effect of said tail plane is desired, said member having substantially no effect on either lift or drag in positions of said tail plane, e.g., in cruise flight, other than said pre-determined tilted position in which control enhancement is desired.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.