I did not want to hijack the thread on the “What makes an airplane turn” topic so I started a new thread about rudder. In the previous thread someone mentioned an R/C (radio controlled) model that just had rudder control. Having grown up in the infancy of R/C rudder only was very popular. With just rudder control you can turn, climb, dive, loop, roll, split S and Immelmann. Everything except sustained flight upside down. Bear in mind we had no elevator, aileron or throttle control. The magic wasn’t just the rudder but a combination of wing incident, dihedral, speed, stabilizer angle, airfoil and engine thrust. The point being although there was no pitch, elevator or engine speed control the fixed state of those were not static but had dynamic affects at different phases of flight. Although these were models the physics of flight doesn’t change. This demonstrates to me it takes all forces to turn an airplane, not just 1 control.
To those not familiar with how an airplane flies it seems impossible to perform a sequence of maneuvers with just the ability to turn the rudder left and right. We did it every Sunday all day. If anyone needs a better understanding how this is possible let me know.
To those not familiar with how an airplane flies it seems impossible to perform a sequence of maneuvers with just the ability to turn the rudder left and right. We did it every Sunday all day. If anyone needs a better understanding how this is possible let me know.