Talk:Stabilizer (aeronautics)

message: Here's another way of looking at the issue. It is greatly simplified and I am hoping that the non-technical reader will be able to follow the gist of it.
Any conventional aerofoil is unstable in pitch, and any ordinary lifting surface so constructed is unstable in  pitch: any small pitch-up movement causes the centre of lift to move forwards, increasing the tendency to pitch up, so the thing flips up out of control.
The classic solution to this is to have two surfaces, one behind the other. The overall centre of lift now sits in between those of each individual lifting surface, with each surface exerting a lifting force on either side of it: in steady flight, these forces balance out. Provided things are set up right, a small pitch-up movement will increase the lift on the rear surface more than the front. This lifts the rear and therefore pitches the nose back down to stabilise (add "z" to taste) the aircraft.
Thus, the craft is stabilised by the relationship between the fore and aft lift components.
It is common - as has been referenced by several editors - to call the larger of these two surfaces the wing, and the smaller the horizontal stabiliser - or, if they are of comparable size, then we call both of them wings (in tandem).
One may note that the rear surface "wins" with the greater change in lift and therefore in a technical sense it stabilises the action of the forward surface, while the "losing" forward surface is doing its best to destabilise. However, nowhere in the literature is it attested that this forbids a small forward surface to be called a "stabiliser" - everybody understands that its action stabilises the craft as a whole.
This article is titled "Stabilizer (Aircraft)" and therefore, because of the above, such a small forward surface must be addressed as one kind of stabiliser.
— Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 20:59, 26 June 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: A plain explanation

message: Indented line
...I don't have time right now to go through the revisions and see what may or may not be right. I did, however, find an article by the master, Peter Garrison, that might help shed some light on the subject. "Three's Company". - The Bushranger One ping only 16:28, 3 June 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Nice find. Barber starts simply. "Longitudinal Stability in an aeroplane is its stability about an axis transverse to the direction of normal horizontal flight, and without which it would pitch and toss." and then talks of longitudenal dihedral and angle of incidence but finishes with "Aeroplanes have, in the past, been built with a stabilizing surface in front of the main surface instead of at the rear of it" (The Aeroplane Speaks p70, 75). GraemeLeggett (talk) 20:22, 3 June 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Another quote "The horizontal stabilizer prevents an up-and-down motion of the nose, which is called pitch. (On the Wright brother's first aircraft, the horizontal stabilizer was placed in front of the wings. Such a configuration is called a canard..." this page is intended for college, high school, or middle school students NASA. also from the same august body "On some aircraft, the pitch stability and control is provided by a horizontal surface placed forward of the center of gravity"  GraemeLeggett (talk) 17:55, 7 June 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  About that edit war... 

message: Following the discussion about "canard as stabiliser", it may be concluded that, although it is sometimes called stabiliser, a canard is generally aerodynamically described as a destabilising surface, so being not logically included here. It seems that the section "Canard foreplane" would be better moved to Canard (aeronautics) under the title, for example, "Canard effect on the stabilisation".</br>
What is your idea about this ?Plxdesi2 (talk) 15:52, 17 April 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Agree. Good work aligning up the sources regarding the denomination. Ariadacapo (talk) 16:23, 17 April 2013 (UTC)
replies: text:  I Disagree. People will read of a "canard stabiliser" and want to know more. They are as likely to turn to the Canard (aeronautics) article as to Stabilizer (aircraft), so to make these articles readable, both need to summarise the issue. It may be that some of the section's content can usefully be moved or copied across, but I haven't looked that deep. The section heading and basic discussion should stay. But I will second that you are doing much good work, and not just in organising references. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 18:21, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

text: Taking a closer look at the section, most of it is discussing how stability can be achieved with a canard "stabiliser" and so is relevant to this article. The last two paragraphs are not really relevant and I'd suggest they should be moved across or deleted. Looking next at the Canard (aeronautics) article, use of the term "stabliser" only ever applies to a lifting-canard, so I'd suggest that section needs a new subsection, called say "Stability", and with similar content but adapted for the focus of the article. Does that make sense? — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 21:05, 17 April 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Canard : to be or not to be (in [[Stabilizer]]) 

message: "The Voisin was more precisely a tandem lifting layout (wing and tail)"
:Clarify :"More precisely" → Was the center of gravity positioned between wing and tail?
::Yes, see web images. It is a tailwheel gear, the main gear is about mid-chord front wing, the CoG placed about the trailing edge of the main wing : the rear wing (tail wing) is actually loaded (note the cambered rear airfoil, as much as the wing). 
"With a foreplane that was neither lifting nor stabilizing ; it was called an "équilibreur",Gabriel Voisin, Mes 10.000 cerfs-volants (My 10,000 kites), page 166 : "et je m'apprêtais à tirer sur mon équilibreur... puis il braqua son équilibreur vers la montée." ("balancer"), and used as a pitch control and trim surface".
:Clarify : If the équilibreur is used to balance (trim) and control (braquer vers la montée→ deflect towards climb position), then it is necessarily used as a lifting surface.
::Every control or trim surface is momentarily lifting. The Voisin foreplane (as AEA-Curtiss aircraft) was a control-trim surface, not mainly lifting. See in flight images showing the foreplane in neutral or down incidence. The Voisin is a reversed 3 surface : pitch control at front instead of rear, rear lifting tail instead of front lifting canard.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Plxdesi2 (talk • contribs) 08:15, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Voisin 1908 configuration 

message: "Stabilizer" has two meanings : as horizontal tail or tail, it is the rear tail assembly. As structural part, it may describe the fixed part of a conventional tail. This second restrictive definition prevents to deal with balance and stability considerations, because the whole tail assembly (and not only the front "stabilizer") is involved in. There is no stability without elevator, because stabilization needs first a balanced trim, given by elevator/trim-tab unit. That prevents also to describe (and to understand as well) the all-moving tail variant, of which there is no fixed part nor would-be specialized stabilizing OR controlling parts. In the restrictive separate "stabilizer" approach, a full moving tail, lacking "stabilizer", may be understood as unable to stabilization effect.</br>
In the previous text, a reader was barely able to know if the "stabilizer" term had the first or the second meaning. So this dual meaning was to be cleared first. Accordingly, the article may describe the whole role of a tail, balance, stability and control. Plxdesi2 (talk) 11:55, 4 May 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Stabilizer with or without control surfaces

message: I have reverted a series of edits, initiated by User:Stodieck (talk), to the section on Canard aircraft. These edits are highly contentious and need to obtain consensus first. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 18:16, 20 July 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Canards 

message: In your edit dated 18 October you inserted statements about:
:1. some light aircraft having an all-moving stabilator rather than separate stabilizer and elevator, and
:2. supersonic aircraft having stabilators to avoid unacceptable drag.
You cited a NASA educational website as the source. I have read the NASA website and I can find nothing to support the above 2 items of information. Am I missing something hidden somewhere in the cited source? Please check your edit. Thanks. Dolphin (t) 08:10, 18 October 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Stabilators