GB466462A - Improvements in devices for operating the control surfaces of flying machines - Google Patents

Abstract

466,462. Controlling aircraft. POTEZ, H. C. A. Oct. 14, 1936, No. 27870. Convention date, Oct. 25, 1935. [Class 4] A member operating aircraft control surfaces is connected with the control surface or surfaces by contractible and expansible connecting means which is normally held in its contracted position by spring means and is adapted to be brought into expanded position by means responsive by their inertia to vertical and centrifugal accelerations of the aircraft so that if the pilot should hold the operating member in a fixed position, the action of the inertia will move the control surface or surfaces in a direction reducing the acceleration. In one form, Fig. 1, the elevator control rod comprises portions 7, 8 abutting at 20 and interconnected by means of a spring 19 connecting adjacent ends of bell-crank levers 12, 13 which are pivoted at their apices on a floating link 16 and each pivoted at an intermediate point of the arm carrying spring 19 to rod portions 7, 8, respectively, masses 10, 11 being secured to the free arms of the levers. The spring tension is such that in normal flight no separation of portions 7, 8 will occur but on undue vertical acceleration masses 10, 11 will move downwardly rocking the bell-crank levers 12, 13 in the direction to cause deflection of the elevator in the appropriate sense to reduce the acceleration. In another form, inertia devices such as shown in Fig. 1 are interposed in the run of aileron control rods with a view to limiting the acceleration due to the action of gusts striking the wings. In a modification, Fig. 5, only one such device is used and is responsive only to forces acting in the neighbourhood of the pilot.