Design for the Control of a Rotatable Stabiliser

This research sets out a design for the control of a rotatable stabiliser which, it is proposed, might augment, or fully replace, the conventional control mechanisms for pitch and yaw in aircraft. The anticipated advantages of such a device are around 25% less drag, for a capability which ranges between equivalent and greater than twofold that of the conventional tail. One, anticipated handicap of such a device is the potential for it to stall, from its tips, inward, if rotated too fast. For succinctness, a mapping betweeen states of the device and the position of a two-axis controller (e.g. a joystick) is formulated. The function of the joystick traditionally assigned to the control of ailerons is replaced by that traditionally associated with the rudder pedals. Its function is otherwise conventional. From this topology it follows that small and continuous adjustments of the controls should cause the stabiliser to rotate in a direction opposite to that of the joystick (when viewed from aft) and the deflection of the hinged control surface is proportional to the radial displacement of the joystick from its centred position. For what would amount to large and contradictory rotations of the device in terms of this protocol (e.g. rotations of 90{\deg}, or greater), movement can be more efficiently effected by regarding the device's original orientation to differ by 180{\deg} and its original deflection to be the negative of what it actually is. One consequence of this latter mode of control is that a symmetrical aerofoil (e.g. the NACA 0015) is indicated.