Airbrakes

The only airbrakes I know about are the ones on the Stuka Divebomber.

How about the Helldiver? Or the A-36 Apache (later known as P-51B). And many other WWII dive bombers.

Mike, there used to be some plans for scale airbrakes doing the rounds a while back on various websites. You might want to do a search through google and see if that turns up anything. Are you interested in a particular type of airbrake i.e. top-mounted, trailing-edge...etc or just general information on all types? Some good stuff can be found in Martin Simons book on Model Aerodynamics which might help you on your way.

Regards

Dan

I think just about any large airliner has em as well. Things that flap up on the wings to get the plane down fairly - but not TOO - fast. They also from memeory get deployed as brakes fully once the aircraft touches down, along with reverse thrust etc.

Basiaclly the theory is to add drag without affecting the contol authority, to prevent overspeed in dives.

Normally gliders use crow braking I think - I am not a glider expert - basically one section of the flaps/ailerons goes up, and the other goes down, and this gives a very strange effect - the model just settles into a fairly slow, but almost vertical decsent.

As I said, I am no expert here. I have just seen them talked about and played with them on Realflight simulator. If they work in real life anything like the sim, they are massively useful for spot landings in heavy lift conditions. .

TNP, The things you see on airliners are actually termed spoilers, and are also be used to provide roll control on many aircraft (Boeing fleet, Tornado etc)

Crow braking can only be used with wings employing ailerons and flaps. RES (Rudder, elevator, spoiler) models use only pop-up spoilers on the inboard section of the wing. Crow braking is superior in my opinion as long as adequate roll control can be maintained with the upwards deflected ailerons. The vortices generated between the downward deflected flap and upward deflected aileron provide an enormous braking effect when compared to the spoilers which mostly just destroy lift.

Regards

- Dan

I don't know anything about those airbrakes. I know they have them but I don't know how they operate. Since I am currently building the Stuka I am intricately aware of their operation. Unfortunatley I doubt a sailplane would like the extra drag of external brakes.

I have never seen them deployed differentially - but then its hard to look out of both windows at the same time :-)

Thanks. That adds to my (very limited) knowledge on those.