ORIGINAL: otrcman
All Piper Cherokees, the Seminole, Comanche, Twin Comanche, Aztec, and other models had the all-flying tail...called a ''Stabilator''. It worked excellently. They did not have a trim tab, but had an anti-servo tab, which increased the camber of the stabilator as it was deflected and increased control forces with that deflection. Without the anti-servo tab, the elevator 'feel' would be too light, and the stabilator would not trim well. Adjustment of the centering of the anti-servo tab changed in-flight trim, just as the trim tab on a standard stabilizer/elevator setup.
There were no difficulties known to happen because Piper used stabiliators...unless the aircraft was flown well outside of its speed envelope, but there never was any ''snatch'' in the control system.
Actually, the stabilator did give Piper some problems. The balance of a stabilator can be very critical. Check out the footage of a Twin Comanche which fluttered during a flight test. No, the airplane was not being flown faster than the red line airspeed. No, it wasn't out of rigging or balance tolerances. This event didn't occur during the actual test point. It occurred on the way home at a lower airspeed while the chase photographer was running out his film. Fortunately the pilot had quick reflexes and pulled up quickly to kill off airspeed. The pilot, by the way, was Fred Haise, later Lunar Module Pilot on Apollo 13. Some guys have all the luck.
http://www.dfrc.nasa.gov/gallery/mov...M-0098-01.html
Twin Comanches were temporarily restricted to a much lower redline speed until revisions were made to the stabilator design.
My experience with full scale stabilator design has been that it is much more critical to design properly. It's easy to stumble into a flutter problem (model or full scale) and often has control power issues. And, yes, it can have disagreeable traits even in some current full scale airplanes.
Like the swept vertical tail on many light airplanes, the stabilator is more of a sales gimmick than an engineering advantage. The parts count is higher in a hinged elevator, thus more expensive. But I look at the hinged elevator as betting more of a sure thing.
Supersonic planes with stabilators? Yep, whole different animal. You need an all-movable surface if you intend to go supersonic.
Dick Fischer
edited to fix the quote so it shows as a quote