aileron

[Awhirl]

ok,,,,rudder I understand,,,,,,,,,flaps sure.......but what function are your ailerons?,,,,,,,,,guess i'm looking at manually working them instead of  using combat trim.......hmmmm,,,confused??

Awhirl

[zmeg]

Ailerons control your roll (m and ,) while rudder will also indirectly affect roll ailerons directly control it.

[Innominate]

http://www.aviation-history.com/theory/flt_ctl.htm

[Awhirl]

Thanks for your replies,,,,,and the links........interesting reading on  the walk around for a ww1 craft


Awhirl

[agflit01]

ok... really quite simple if i remember this right from my old flight training... an aircraft has three (3) directions of movement... they are called " pitch, roll, and yaw"... pitch is controlled by the elevator, ie up and down... push stick away from u, the nose will move away, or " down"... "yaw", is the movement of the aircraft around its horizontal axis... ie, the movement of the aircraft left and right... stomp a rudder pedal, thats yaw... and the third axis of flight is called "roll"... the aircrafts direction of flight along it's perpendicular axis ... or the tendency/desire of the airfoil to drop one wing or another... this is controlled by the application of appropriate aileron... and without going onto a lesson on aerodynamic forces, we will just say that simply put, when u change the lift vector of one wing...(the direction and amount of force being applied to that wing...) the aircraft is unbalenced, and will be "pushed away" from the force being applied...in the case of ailerons, if u drop one wing, the upper wing is moving faster thru the air, and more force is applied in the form of lift... which wants to " drag" the nose in that direction... the application of rudder then compensates for this "adverse yaw" and the aircraft flies in a more coordinated manner... been a long time, hope i got it right and it helps u understand things alittle better...                            agflit01

[bockko]

the aileron is what rolls your plane when you pull the stick side to side; it sounds like you want to know about the trim tabs (based on the comment about combat trim). Each control surface has a small integrated, movable surface that can be "trimmed" up or down by the pilot. In real life the plane acts differently as speed and attitude is changed. Once you reach a speed/alt you want to stay on, you "trim" the control surfaces to keep the plane on altitude without having to use alot of force on the stick/yoke (also, you may trim for a certain climb attitude). What the trim tabs do is cause the elevator, or aileron, or rudder to deflect up or down, in essence making your nose rise or dive, or your nose to move left or right, or your plane to roll to one side or the other. Now the trick is that trimming is usually done in small increments, so you fine tune your control. When you make drastic maneuvers, say dive 5k on an enemy, your trim gets out of whack fast, making your job as pilot harder. Combat trim automatically adjusts your trim for you in the game; you can turn it off and trim manually, it is much easier if you have a joystick setup with many programmable buttons (like the x-45, or the cougar, or ch products stick/throttle combo).  In summary, your ailerons are always in use, but the trim tabs can be, in the game at least, done for you by combat trim, or you can trim for yourself.

[DamnedRen]

Im from the old KISS (keep it simple, stoopid) school of higher education . Perhaps the easiest way to discuss roll in practical terms is:
Roll (aileron) helps you change direction of travel.
Roll and pitch (elevator) actually turns you.
Yaw (rudder) helps keep your turn coordinated.

What's all the simple stuff mean?

Let's say you wanna turn right. You roll your wings to the right and pull back on the stick. In normal flight AH will provide the rudder input for a coordinated turn. Left's the same way. Roll wings left and pull. Simple!

What's a coordinated turn? It's where the planes tail actually follows the nose around along the flight path. No slipping or sliding (kinda like a car on a gravel road tyring to turn at high speeds).

Simple. Right?

Suggestion: read up on the effects of control surfaces and flying but get up there and do it!!!
Nothing takes the place of stick time. Every single time you take off and fly you will learn something.

Have fun!!!

Ren