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Old November 10th 03, 06:08 PM
Bill Higdon
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Larry Smith wrote:
"Bill Daniels" wrote in message
news
"B2431" wrote in message
...

Can anyone provide a site or advice on placement a details of


construction

and

design of spoilers?

Dan, U. S. Air Force, retired


What do you want the spoilers to do? Glide path control like a sailplane


or

slow an airplane down to flap/gear extension speed? If the latter, look


at

some Mooneys with speed brakes. If the former, visit a gliderport. There
are lots of variations.

One thing to keep in mind is that spoilers spoil the lift in a way that
redistributes it spanwise towards the wingtips. On sailplanes, this can
reduce the wing ultimate load factor from, say 5.5G to 3G - not a good


thing

if you are recovering from a dive.

Some people have even tried them as alternatives for ailerons - lots of
issues with this.

Bill Daniels



The Taylorcraft L-2M Grasshopper has wing spoilers, designed to kill lift.

On the subject of drooped ailerons and flaperons, I was just looking at an
Aztec with a Robertson STOL kit installed. The only mod I could see was
maybe a dam on the wing. I asked the IA where the hell the mods were, and
he said that the ailerons were drooped (30 degrees?) for takeoff. It was
supposed to get off in 700 feet, he said.



My 2 cents worth there are 3 aircraft that used Spoilers for Roll
controll like they should be. 2 of them were Northrop designs, the P-61
and the C-125, and the other one is the Grumman S-2. They used a mixture
of Spoilers and a small aileron at the tip for roll control. I talked to
a WWII Pilot whoi flew a P-61, He said it was a blast to fly, as long as
you didn't have a nose wheel collapse or land with the gear Up and the
engines running. The rummor was you wound up with a prop blade throw the
cockpit where the pilots legs were.
Bill Higdon
Bill Higdon