Flight Control Systems and Their Design

During the Second World War, there were multiple documented inci­dents and several fatalities that occurred when fighter pilots dove their propeller-driven airplanes at speeds approaching the speed of sound. Pilots reported increasing levels of buffet and loss of control at these speeds. Wind tunnels at that time were incapable of producing reliable meaningful data in the transonic speed range because the local shock waves were reflected off the wind tunnel walls, thus invalidating the data measurements. The NACA and the Department of Defense (DOD) cre­ated a new research airplane program to obtain a better understanding of transonic phenomena through flight-testing. The first of the resulting aircraft was the Bell XS-1 (later X-1) rocket-powered research airplane.

On NACA advice, Bell had designed the X-1 with a horizontal tail configuration consisting of an adjustable horizontal stabilizer with a hinged elevator at the rear for pitch control, at a time when a fixed hor­izontal tail and hinged elevator constituted the standard pitch control configuration for that period.[674] The X-1 incorporated this as an emergency means to increase its longitudinal (pitch) control authority at transonic speeds. It proved a wise precaution because, during the early buildup flights, the X-1 encountered similar buffet and loss of control as reported by earlier fighters. Analysis showed that local shock waves were form­ing on the tail surface, eventually migrating to the elevator hinge line. When they reached the hinge line, the effectiveness of the elevator was significantly reduced, thus causing the loss of control. The X-1 NACA-

U. S. Air Force (USAF) test team determined to go ahead, thanks to the

X-1 having an adjustable horizontal tail. They subsequently validated that the airplane could be controlled in the transonic region by moving the horizontal stabilizer and the elevator together as a single unit. This discovery allowed Capt. Charles E. Yeager to exceed the speed of sound in controlled flight with the X-1 on October 14, 1947.[675]

An extensive program of transonic testing was undertaken at the NACA High-Speed Flight Station (HSFS; subsequently the Dryden Flight Research Center) on evaluating aircraft handling qualities using the conventional elevator and then the elevator with adjustable stabi­lizer.[676] As a result, subsequent transonic airplanes were all designed to use a one-piece, all-flying horizontal stabilizer, which solved the control problem and was incorporated on the prototypes of the first supersonic American jet fighters, the North American YF-100A, and the Vought XF8U-1 Crusader, flown in 1953 and 1954. Today, the all-moving tail is a standard design ele­ment of virtually all high-speed aircraft developed around the globe.[677]