Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Elevon mixing?

Does anybody know how the elevon panel deflections on delta airplanes (like F-106 or Mirage III) were mixed? Did the inner and outer elevons move together, or was there some differential there? How much did each panel deflect for roll and pitch?

I just guessed for the Mirage model, and could do the same for the F-106, but I'd rather get this right if I can.

3 comments:

  1. You mean from the animation perspective ? Or are you doing in-depth FDM modelling of the surfaces and FCS ?

    Might want to post at http://forum.f-106deltadart.com/

    Searching the archives for info, as the topic perked my curiosity :)
    Will get back with findings if any.

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  2. This is just for animation. I'm getting the pitch and roll that I'd like. Right now I have the inboard elevons moving with pitch, and the outboards moving with roll. I have a feeling there was some mixing in the real delta airplanes.

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  3. I've seen some reference to that : there is a elevon mixer airplane part mentioned as one of the pet peeves of the mechanics who worked on the Delta Dart and post at the forums mentioned above.
    Everything had to re-tuned quite regularly, and a bit of over-g would change the balance and necessitate a hellish taking out of a lot of parts to gain access to the mixer. Rods and mechanical parts, no FBW wires :)

    Interesting stories on that forum, and some good info on the parent site (nice, detailed cockpit images as well as some unclassified and declassified manuals)

    I've also seen blurbs elsewhere about the outer ones being used to create wingtip vortices, but pretty sure that only applies to the NASA NF-106 birds, not the USAF/ANG ones.

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