GB615933A - Improvements relating to control surfaces for aircraft - Google Patents

Abstract

615,933. Control systems for aircraft. FAIREY AVIATION CO., Ltd., CHAPLIN, H. E., and COSTIGAN, F. J. June 27, 1946, No. 19259. [Class 4] An aircraft is controlled, at least at high speed, by surfaces mounted in the exhaust stream or streams from the engine or engines and pivotally movable under the pilot's control by means of a linkage which includes T-shaped levers, the cross-limbs of which are slotted and mounted on pivots movable in the slots so that the velocity ratio of the control linkage may be varied. Surfaces 15 ... 18 mounted immediately behind the discharge tubes 19, 20 of a pair of jet engines are mounted for rotation about shafts 21 ... 24 under the pilot's control through a linkage including arms 31 ... 34, links 35 ... 38 and 41, 42, reversing levers 39, 40 and T-shaped members 43, 44. The latter are pivoted about vertical axes 45, 46; rotation about these axes causes the control surfaces on the corresponding side to move in opposite senses while bodily movement of the T-member causes the corresponding surfaces to move in the same sense. The T- members 45 are restrained in their bodily movement by arms 47, 48 pivoted to a fixed bracket 49 and their rotation is controlled by links 79, 80 and arm 81 secured to a shaft 82 rotatable by a linkage from the'rudder bar 94; this rotation in a like sense of the T-members 43, 44 causes the surfaces on' one side to approach and those on the other side to diverge from one another so steering the aircraft. The members 43, 44 are moved bodily in a like sense by links 50, 51 when a member 52, secured to a vertical shaft 53 rotatably mounted in a bracket 55 rotating about a vertical shaft 56, is moved bodily by a linkage 57, 58, 62, 63, 64, 65 operated by fore-and-aft movement of the pilot's control column 66; this bodily movement in a like sense of members 43, 44 causes all the surfaces 15 ... 18 to move in the same sense and thus to have an elevator effect. Unlike bodily movement of the members 43, 44 moves the surfaces on one side in one sense and those on the other side in the opposite sense to provide an aileron effect; this motion is controlled by lateral swinging of the control column 66 which rotates a lever 77 secured to a hollow shaft 78 and, through a linkage 76, 72, 71 rotates, bell-crank 70, 69 freely mounted on shaft 56 and linked by a member 68 to an arm 67 secured to shaft 53; rotation of the bell-crank thus causes rotation of member 52 and unlike bodily movement of members 43, 44. The linkages for the three types of control each include a T-shaped lever 58, 72 or 85 connected at one end of a slot 59, 73, 86 to the linkage 57, 71, 84 and at the other end to a linkage 61, 75, 88 connected to conventional flight controls. In the slot 59, 73 or 86 slides a pivot pin 60, 74, 87 about which the lever turns in operation. Thus, by moving the pin along the slot the relative extents of operation of the high speed and conventional controls may be varied. The surfaces 15 ... 18 may be retracted into the fuselage by rotation of the shafts 21 ... 24 about vertical shafts 25, 26 rotatable by arms 27, 28, each having a pin- and-slot connection with a retraction control rod 30. In an alternative construction, the surfaces 15, 18 are replaced by two horizontally extending surfaces, one behind each jet tube 19, 20, which are operated similarly to ailerons, and a vertical rudder-like surface. The surfaces may be mounted in the exhaust streams of engines other than jet engines and the two exhaust tubes 19, 20 may constitute the rear ends of a pair of divergent tubes carrying th) exhaust of a single engine.