O.K. I'm too new to know whether this is a common practice or not. And, I actually thought about this the other day but I am trying to limit my noob questions to things I really need to know about. But, was flying with a fellow today that I met through sailplane forum and he asked about how much throw I had on my sailplane, we both fly Stork E's. I have as much as the mechanical limits allow on the aileron. He said he mixes/combines the ailerons and flaps to work as a single unit, essentially creating one big honking aileron.
Is this a common practice? Maybe just for windy days...I realize that probably not ideal for efficiency as it creates alot of drag.

Actually, the amount of drag might be less. You're actually moving your TX stick to get the result you wish. If you wish to roll the airplane slowly, for example, you're only going to move the TX's aileron stick whatever amount that makes the airplane roll as slowly as you wish. If only the ailerons moved to get that slow roll, they'd move a certain amount to do it. If both they and the flaps moved, then they'd move less, right.

There are a number of different aerodynamic "things" involved, but having the "longer" and larger surface move less to get the desired result would probably get the result a bit more efficiently. So there might actually be less drag.

Another detail......

The amount of throw you have available can often mean little with gliders. We very often learn to use just the amount of stick (control stick movement) to cause our glider to do what we want, as much or as little as we want, and as fast or as slowly as we want.

So very often, we use lots less control surface movement than is available.

One goal that is worthwhile for glider guiders is to tune the mechanics in the glider to match the max physical throw to the max aerodynamic throw required. We often fly our planes with very little stick movement. And we often have airplanes that'll do very fast, wild things with very little surface deflections. And it's to our advantage to have those airplanes need 100% of the throw from the TX stick to give those little throws in the airplane.

I think it was glider guys who were the first to embrace exponential. And it was pretty much for the same reasons just mentioned.

We do a lot of flying with very little surface deflections. And very often, our tiny little deflections mean A BUNCH to the length of the flight we get with them.

On your average 6-function sailplane, the rule of thumb when programming is start with flaps having 50% of the aileron throw, then season to taste. It IS less drag to set it up this way. If you follow what the F3F racers are trying to do, you realize they are trying maximize speed and minimize drag from thier setups.

Total throw, as stated before only matters in regards to how you fly. Are you doing fast rolls, or turning hard to get to a thermal you just passed? Then a little more throw wouldnt hurt. Some expo will make it seem like youre a smoother flier. I find elevator is where most fliers overdo the throw thing..sometimes I'll hand the TX back because the guy has a Crash-Bandecoot-elevator

So, if I setup the flaps to help out the ailerons, I don't set them up to align with what the ailerons are doing, I set them up to follow them, but with about 50% of their throw? Though I will eventually want to get this thing to roll nicely and do similar aerobatics, occasionally, for now I just want enough control authority to get me out of trouble as I become more comfortable flying into landing patterns...currently my weak point I am working on (got 5 landings now to my credit[X(].
Any good books out there for this sort of setup detail? Maybe its time for me to invest on one or two of the setup videos that are out there for sailplanes.

The purpose of having the flaps follow the ailerons, in a thermal duration glider, is to be able to get the same amont of roll force using less throw on the ailerons. This produces less drag allowing the plane to fly more efficently. In addition the smaller throws, produce less adverse yaw which will then require less rudder input to create an efficent turn. Again, this reduces drag. Testing has shown that the flaps should move less than the ailerons, say about 25% to 50% of aileron throw.

In order to do this you need the flaps to each be on separate servos and you need a computer radio that can address all four wing servos independently as you are changing the behavior of the flaps. Now, the flaps move opposite each other rather than together.

So, for example, a Futaba 6 EXAS or 7C, Hitec Flash 5SX or Optic 6 could not do this. Hitec Eclispe 7, Futaba 9C, Jr 9303, Airtroncis Stylus, Multiplex EVO 9 can. There are others, I just use these as examples.

When I am advising people on radios, this is one of the key features I talk about as I feel this is a very important feature for the "serious" sailplane pilot. This is referred to as 4 wing servo capability. There can be a significant jump in price in order to get into a radio that has this feature.

I did get the JR 9303 sailplane radio. If you are familiar with that radio, which I would assume has many similarities as others, there are 5 modes you can setup; launch, cruise, land, thermal, speed. I suppose what you do with each of the five modes is up to personal preference, but was wondering if there is any time I want to remain with my current setup of having only the ailerons provide roll? Obviously, land mode won't be a candidate for flaperailerons (have no idea what the correct term for flaps and ailerons following each other, sorry), but all the other modes sound like candidates for combining flaps to ailerons?????

Flapperons are when you only have ailerons and you want to use them like flaps or spoilers, which we call spoilerons.

What we have been discussing here is an aileron/flap mix where the ailerons are master and the flaps are slave, following the input of the master channel.

It is common to have this mix controlled by a switch but I find I leave them on all the time now so I plan to have them active always.

Been running them together for a little while now. It made a huge difference in control response. I leave them on all the time except when flaps needed. Great stuff!

Leave them on when you use the flaps too!

so if you have flaps which go to 90 degrees down you mix aileron and flaps as you reduce flaps? I guess I never thought of that as I was using the rule of thumb where you run the flaps at 50% of movement of ailerons. How do you do that if when flaps are engaged they both go down together, opposed to ailerons which provide roll control; one up, one down?

Try it, you won't like it!
When both flaperons are down as far as they can get, the aileron function kinda reverses..
The down going aileron can't go down any further, the up going aileron goes up.
The result: The drag on the down going side stays the same, the drag on the up going side reduces.
The plane yaws towards the down going side.. opposite the intended direction.
It is very disorienting.
Crow is a better choice.

As Paul says, definetly a big NO-NO! Flaps coupled 1:1 with ailerons works well for minor camber changing for thermal and penetration range of deflections. But things get ugly in a hurry when you want to use anything over about 20 to 30 degrees of flap and the ailerons go down that far as well.

...VERY ugly. Been dere, got the shirt and won't be goin' back.

Maybe I can help a little. To keep it simple, A to F during flight for better authority. Not when landing. Crow is the way to go. Set up for A to F is 20 to 30% of the aileron full through and remimber to put less down than up in aileron set up.