Things about flaps...that makes ya go-------------hummmmmmmmmmmmm?
In the late 70's I was assigned to a wind tunnel test that was being conducted by a Swiss team of high performance sail plane glider nutzski's that were looking for ways to distribute the excessive forces that hinged flaps and ailerons were causing not only stress but also cause excessive stalls and including loss of altitude at higher altitudes where the air becomes thinner?
For competition sail plane and sailboat rich folks...nothing is too krazzzeeee' or expensive for big boys with too much $$$ to spend on their toys. (Boeing in those daze days..were taking all kind of weird stuff from all kinds of BIG$$$ BOYS WITH TOYS.
For most of us model makers and the design team of Aero engineering staff...the first road block was simply trying to find the right material with the correct amount of stiffness and flexibility that would allow the flaps (without a normal hinge line)to be workable...
but remain and afixed solidly at the wingtips but still be flexible enough for the pilots controls that would allow the wing itself to simply warp into the up or down configuration when control input to the flexible trailing edge of the sail planes long wings?
This test was a real HB~>BANGER for everyone. Building a flutter model wing actually with such capibility was not a problem for a test but the R&D development time frame.
Sadly this sail plane flexible control surfaced project ran out of tunnel time and budget and the team ended up taking the test back to the Russian facility for further studies....
Often I keep thing back to just MAYBE A FIXED FLAP CONCEPT...FOR CLPA MODELS...could have some kind of merit...especially on HIGHER ASPECT WINGS..
After reading this drivil (too many cups of Starbucks java again)...I almost deleted this post.
Any thoughts on flexible moving surfaces on our wings n' elevators.