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Old 08-06-2022, 02:19 PM
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highhorse
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Welcome the the rabbit hole…

There has been some casual conflation here of “crow” and “reflex”, and I am guilty of having contributed to same in a post above. Crow is an aileron reflex in association with flaps, primarily aimed at increasing drag with an associated byproduct of tip AOA reduction, whereas ailerons can also be reflexed on their own with the primary function being reduction in tip AOA and an associated by product of drag.

Guys, please note when comparing washout to reflex that washout isn’t “free”. It causes lift reduction via change in the localized AOA in the portion of the wing washed out. It can not decrease tip-stall issues without also affecting adverse yaw characteristics and resultant ail differential required while also increasing net induced drag as compared to an unwashed wing, and even…and this is a big one…detrimentally INcreasing tip-stall potential during negative-G flight (which technically speaking may or may not be actually be inverted) since during negative-G flight an otherwise washed-out wing becomes a washed-IN wing as alluded to in the OP. Yes, reflex does have more profile drag than washout for the same effect, but that is minuscule at the tiny amount of reflex required to effect the desired changes, while the induced drag remains nearly the same.

Meanwhile also please note that control surface deflections of any type -and in this case ailerons- don’t do their thing without also changing the effective localized AOA and stall characteristics in the same way as does washout. Does reflex cause drag? Yeah. More drag? Sometimes, but that depends on the net flight condition(s) and essentially a reflexed (*) aileron is still the same as a washed out wing.

One could even make the argument that +/- reflex mixed with +/- elevator (such that the ailerons remain unflexed when elevator is in the middle regions of throw and are only flexed either +/- in relation to elevator inputs associated with higher +/- AOAs) would offer the best of both worlds since there’s no wash-in while inverted and there’s a net reduction in drag to boot. Incidentally, there’s an older thread here where a user describes having tamed tip stalls of his wayward F-86 with just this method where he mixed a smidge of aileron reflex with + elevator.