Forum: aviation.stackexchange.com
Tags: <aviation-history><rudder>
Title: When was the first rudder on an aircraft used?
Question: I have seen pictures of World War I-era airplanes that have rudders much smaller than today. When did the first rudder come out?

Answers:
sents: text: Planes as early as the wright glider (1902) had a rudder, it appears from pictures that the 1900 and 1901 variants did not have rudders but its hard to tell from the photos.
text: Depending on your definition if you are talking about powered flight the Wright Flyer (1903) had 2 rudders much like its earlier glider predecessor.
text: In the lighter than air category, the Giffard Dirigible (1852) had a sail like rudder in the aft of the ship.
text: So that may take the cake if you have consider it a true rudder.
text: Side Note: Patented in 1930
text: the V-Tail design could be argued as the first design that did not (as far as I know)
text: employ a rudder.
text: The earlier Beechcraft Bonanza's are the most common plane of that design in commercial production.
text: There is quite a bit of debate as to the safety of ruddervators and the general theme seems to be that they are not perfect and do require some care to fly properly.
answer_details: author: aviation.stackexchange.com/users/3677/Dave
score: 6
sents: text: Rudder itself was used before the Wright.
text: It was just the idea of a rudder on a boat.
text: Otto Lilienthal flew a glider which had a tail with a modern look in 1894: Source
text: Actually the whole airplane has a modern look, like the cambered wing, Lilienthal was an aerodynamicist, he invented the polar curve .
text: Note: The rudder is not meant to control the aircraft direction
text: --this is done by rolling the wing,-- but to counteract the adverse yaw which develops when the wing is rolled (more drag on the upper half of the wing).
text: This effect can be obtained even with a fixed rudder (the turn will not be coordinated , but this tends to prevent a spiral dive).
text: Adverse yaw in a roll ( source , more in this answer )
text: So the size of the rudder is proportional to this force, which is smaller on small wings.
answer_details: author: aviation.stackexchange.com/users/3201/mins
score: 4
sents: text: 1785 ,when Jean-Pierre Blanchard crossed the English Channel in a balloon equipped with flapping wings for propulsion and a birdlike tail for steering according to pages 26-27 of L. Winter and G. Denger's "Minute Epics of Flight," published 1933.
text: We don't have photos, but we do have a woodcut .
answer_details: author: aviation.stackexchange.com/users/31425/Camille Goudeseune
score: 4
sents: text: The Wright Flyer had two rudders.
text: That flew in 1903.
text: Some of the wright bros. earlier gliders also had rudders ...
text: To test the technology and to determine the optimum size.
answer_details: author: aviation.stackexchange.com/users/9823/Emiller
score: 3
sents: text: The 1785 balloon answer is interesting.
text: However, we might note that flapping wings would be extremely ineffective at propelling a balloon, and a rudder will have no significant effect on a free (unpropelled) balloon.
text: With that in mind, we might conclude that George Cayley was the first to suggest the use of a rudder in a practical way on an aircraft.
text: In 1799 George Cayley inscribed a coin with a picture of a design for a glider that appears to include a movable rudder.
text: By 1804 he had built a flying model glider that included a cruciform tail that could be adjusted on the ground both in the pitch and yaw dimensions.
text: By 1848 he had created an illustration of a full-scale glider that included a similar tail that could be adjusted in flight.
text: He tested a full-scale glider built along these lines in 1849, and a larger similar glider in 1853.
text: Here is one link that covers Cayley's work: http://www.flyingmachines.org/cayl.html
text: More recently, the Wright brothers first used a moveable rudder on their 1902 glider, and also used one on their famous 1903 airplane, generally recognized as the first airplane capable of sustained, controlled flight.
text: Having said all that, I wouldn't be surprised if someone located an earlier example of a rudder in a drawing or even an operational (small) model airplane or glider.
text: It is a fairly intuitive concept, deriving directly from naval technology--
text: in fact, the naval precedents might well have tended to lead early inventors to overestimate the advantages and results of having a movable rudder on an airplane.
answer_details: author: aviation.stackexchange.com/users/34686/quiet flyer
score: 1

Summary of the answers:
The first rudder appears to have been used in 1785 when Jean-Pierre Blanchard crossed the Channel in a ballon. On a plane, the earliest rudder was used on the Wright glider in 1902.
The Wright aircraft seem to be the earliest planes with a rudder. However, other earlier aircraft, including a dirigible and a balloon, also had rudder-like components.