Re: CEV to be made commercially available



Peter Stickney wrote:

It also provided very useful information on servo-tab controls.  The
Pilot's yokes weren't attached directly to the control surfaces
(Which were free-floating), but to tabs on the surface.  Deflecting
the tab moved the control surface. (It sounds funny at first, but
remember that you're not sticking a vane into the wind, you're
affecting the flow field over the entire stabilizer/elevator (or
fin/rudder) combination. It lightened the effort needed to point the
thing around, but at the cost of a bit of delay in the time between
moving the yoke and moving the airplane.  There's a film of the B-19
landing on one of its early flights where it gets into a massive PIO
about 100' off the ground.  The nose is pitching up & down through
about a 60 degree angle.  Once they got it sorted out on the B-19,
Servo tab controls were used on other large airplanes, like the B-36
and C-99.


And less succesfully on the Grumman XF-10F Jaguar: http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3897/is_200004/ai_n8902728





Reading the Boeing website today I was surprised that the XB-15
was put into service as a cargo ship for the war (XC-105- one only)
It's certainly a capable-looking plane.



Looks awfully underpowered though.

Pat
.