Here's one for our aeronautical engineers to ponder: While
staring at my ailerons, wondering if they were going to flutter if ever
I get this bird finished, a thought struck me.
Ailerons flutter because they are moving back and forth very fast.
They move back and forth very fast because they are light, and because
they have no mass balancing them on the other side of the hinge.
It then struck me that, to add inertial mass doesn't necessarily mean
putting a weight on an arm out front, or adding a flange so you can put
weight in front of the hinge.
AHA! EUREKA! ZOUNDS! How about placing a mass, not necessarily equal to
the weight of the aileron, on the pushrod itself? Mass is used to create
inertia, and inertia doesn't care which way it's being made to
reluctantly move. The aileron can't move very fast up and down if the
pushrod doesn't want to move very fast backward and forward. There's no
additional force needed to move the aileron, and if the weight is on the
pushrod, it's inside, out of the airstream, where the wind (and
supercritical observers)can't find it. I see a tubular lead weight on
the pushrod, threaded, to snug up against the locknut at the bellcrank
end of the pushrod.
Whaddayathink?
Paul Rodriguez
601XL/Corvair
