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Examining over 100 years of flight automation and the history of the autopilot

Aerotime

His system would provide an aircraft with automatic stability and control mechanism, through the control of the ailerons, stabilizer, and tail rudder through the use of a set of simple gyroscopes. As the French mechanic slid himself along the wing of the aircraft, shifting its center of gravity, the aircraft became unbalanced.

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Tailless Aircraft: How Airplanes Fly Without a Tail

Pilot Institute

A tailless aircraft may still have a fuselage and a vertical tail (fin and rudder). The Weather Vane It mostly comes from the vertical stabilizer (fin) and the sides of the fuselage behind the center of gravity. This feature lets the aircraft’s center of gravity sit in front of the aerodynamic center.

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Approachable Excellence

Plane and Pilot

The rich can dream of jets and warbirds. Depressions in the vertical stabilizer and rudder, as well as stabilator skins and ailerons, all help increase panel stiffness while allowing less under-skin structure. The rest of us fantasize about swinging a Piper Cherokee.

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Everything You Need To Know About Ailerons

Pilot Institute

Adverse yaw is a side effect of aileron use, countered by rudder input. Unlike the elevators and rudder mounted close to the fuselage, the ailerons location at the end of the long, thin, and flexible wings makes them much more prone to flutter. This shifts the ailerons Center of Gravity (C.G.) What Is an Aileron?

Aileron 90
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The Role of Newton’s Third Law in Aviation

Pilot Institute

The principle is the same whether the aircraft gets thrust from propellers or jet engines. A propeller forces air backward, while a jet engine ignites a mixture of air and fuel to generate hot gases that eject backward. In jet engines, increasing throttle increases the fuel flow, producing more exhaust gases that can be flung backward.

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A Rare Robin

Plane and Pilot

The Robin has a placard that reads: Rudder in fully opposed direction; Elevator control pulled fully back; Ailerons in neutral position. A hint of the Robins aerobatic pretensions might be the size of the rudder. You do need to apply a lot of right rudder on climbout, but if youre a tailwheel pilot, that should come naturally.

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What Is a Dutch Roll, and Is It Dangerous?

Pilot Institute

Placing the center of gravity ahead of the aircraft’s center of lift improves longitudinal stability. Doing so provides more lateral stability since the aircraft’s Center of Gravity (CG) lies below the wings. They’re especially used in statically unstable designs like fighter jets. Is Dutch Roll Dangerous?