How the heck do flaps work? [sm=confused.gif]


Ray out

When you lower the flaps on a plane, it helps to redirect the "thrust" (for lack of a better word) of the air going around the wing downwards, generating more lift and allowing you to fly slower, which has it's benefits when coming in for a landing.

There you go, in layman's terms. I'm sure someone else can give you a more technical description.

http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question...s/q0026a.shtml

Basically...you can fly an airplane slower than you would be able to fly without them.......

Here we go: http://travel.howstuffworks.com/airplane13.htm

I think it just pretty much is like a blocker and they go out to make your model less aerodynamic and slow it down while giving it some lift.

They do create more lift throughout the entire range of velocity. However, it is important to remember--the airplane can still stall--it will just stall at a somewhat slower airspeed. Also, it is important to note that flaps increase drag--greatly increase drag. Therefore, if your engine is dead, don't deploy the flaps--your plane will stop and fall straight to mother earth. Also, if your engine dies on glide slope, pull those flaps up, or the same will occur.....

flaperons (ailerons used as flaps) can also have the nasty tendency to cause a normally stable plane to tip stall at slower speeds.

It's an extension of Bernoulli's principle which is what generates lift in the first place. In normal flight regimes/modes, air moving over the longer curved top of the wing gets sucked past by the faster air moving beneath the wing thus generating lift. When you extend the flaps you lengthen both of these dimensions of the wing and increase the amount of lift generated at a slower airspeed. Any further questions feel free to PM me

What he said.

Yeah,

Thats all these flaps do.... But do you really need them? I dont think so, unless you are flying a very fast profile plane like a delta wing or something.

I can land all these prop planes without flaps, and in a very handsome approach. [8D]

So dont go for flaps unless you REALLY need them.

Newton also has something to say about how airplanes fly. I don't want to get into that argument again, though.....

This was a funny thread. Thanks for the laugh. Its amazing what some people think. I will share some of these with my future full scale classes when I teach them. Its kinda like the first graders comments on certain things you get on the email.

Tooooooooo Funny! I needed that ray!

I use flaperons and spoilerons all the time on my ucando. With flaps full down, it will almost come to a stop in a 10 mph breeze. They are also really useful for spot landings, just float in with flaps down and push them up to normal position when you want to land, as soon as you touch down slide them all the way up to full spoilerons and it kills any forward speed. (once you practice this a little you can get fairly good at doing it in smooth motion, too fast and you land HARD, too slow and the effect is lost...)

I hear you loud and Clear Flyboy!

http://home.tiscali.be/comicstrip/Pe...20Controls.htm

Heres a site for you ray, if you really want to know why and how people use flaps. There are 4 types, and the most common on models are going to be plain. Some use slotted, some use split, and very very few use fowler.

Most models fly fine without them. Some play with them just to play with them. I had them on my last stik. They were fun, but I left them off this one. Can do the same thing drooping the ailerons in the radio.

Read up on the site and it will help you to see exactly what each kind does.

OK, here's my question. I'm building a t-6 texan right now that has split flaps. how do split flaps increase the camber? I mean, I understand how, but isn't the effective curvature of the top of the aerofoil still the same as it was when the flaps weren't deployed?

A split flap acts as more of a brake. I have them on the full scale I fly and you get a pretty good pitch up when you use them. You will want to hold down elevator when you deploy them.

They don't change the upper airfoil. Look at some of the old TBM type birds. They had split flaps, but had holes in the flap itself. That makes it even more effective than being solid. The designer wanted me to make holes in the landing brake on my full scale Long EZ to make it more effective, but I didn't want to have to re-design it for the holes and have to re-do it to make it stronger. It would have been a better design.

And finally, my ignorance pays dividends.

Thanks everyone for the answers! It cleared up a lot of fog for me.


Ray out.

Flaps increase the "angle of attack" on that portion of the wing that has flaps.

Higher "AOA" generates more lift

The truely great thing is that the inboard section now has a much higher AOA than the outboard. It is like super washout.

And check out the flaps on my Bonanza project. Notice they are tapered. Therfore the inboard side of the flaps are at a higher AOA than the outboard end of the flaps. This adds even more washout effect and more stability.