Separately banking maneuvering aerodynamic control surfaces, system and method

A maneuvering control system for a flight vehicle extending fore and aft along a longitudinal axis about which the vehicle assumes a roll attitude, said vehicle having a flight computer, comprising:

• means forming a forward section of said vehicle which is free to rotate about said longitudinal axis independently of said roll attitude,
• means forming control surfaces mounted from said section to extend outwardly therefrom along a lateral axes generally on opposite sides of said section,
• means for independently changing the attitude of said control surfaces about said lateral axes to control the roll attitude of said section and to obtain a desired change in direction of flight including:
• actuators connected to said control surfaces for changing the relative attitude of the control surfaces by differential deflection in which said surfaces move counter to each other, and by symmetrical deflection in which said surfaces move in the same direction,
• the attitudes of said surfaces being actuated independently so that differential deflection controls the rotation orientation of said section, and symmetrical deflection produces a pitching moment to the vehicle in the direction of the collective surface orientation,
• means programming said flight computer to output a relative control surface roll angle command and a maneuver load factor command, and
• feed-back control circuit means responsive to said relative roll attitude command and to said maneuver load factor command for converting said commands into position command inputs to said actuators, by which said actuators are controlled to provide differential (rotation angle) and symmetrical (pitch) actions.