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Abrial A-2 Vautour
The A-2 ''Vautour'' (''Vulture'') was a single-seat French glider that was designed by Georges Abrial. It performed well at the Vauville competition of 1925. Design The Vautour was designed by Georges Abrial of the ''Institut Aérotechnique de Saint-Cyr'' and built by Louis Peyret. Each wing, joined to a centre-section on top of the fuselage with light dihedral, had a rectangular plan apart from an angled tip and carried a broad chord aileron which filled about 60% of the span. They were of mixed construction with two rectangular section dural spars and plywood ribs. Each wing was braced with a pair of parallel struts, dural tubes enclosed in streamlined, wooden fairings, between the lower fuselage longerons and the wing spars just inside the ailerons. Its fuselage was rectangular in section, with spruce longerons and laminated wood frames. The sides were everywhere vertical but ahead of the wing it narrowed in plan and decreased in depth to a rounded nose. The downward s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
WikiProject Aircraft
A WikiProject, or Wikiproject, is a Wikimedia movement affinity group for contributors with shared goals. WikiProjects are prevalent within the largest wiki, Wikipedia, and exist to varying degrees within sister projects such as Wiktionary, Wikiquote, Wikidata, and Wikisource. They also exist in different languages, and translation of articles is a form of their collaboration. During the COVID-19 pandemic, CBS News noted the role of Wikipedia's WikiProject Medicine in maintaining the accuracy of articles related to the disease. Another WikiProject that has drawn attention is WikiProject Women Scientists, which was profiled by '' Smithsonian'' for its efforts to improve coverage of women scientists which the profile noted had "helped increase the number of female scientists on Wikipedia from around 1,600 to over 5,000". On Wikipedia Some Wikipedia WikiProjects are substantial enough to engage in cooperative activities with outside organizations relevant to the field at issue. For e ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Spruce
A spruce is a tree of the genus ''Picea'' (), a genus of about 35 species of coniferous evergreen trees in the family Pinaceae, found in the northern temperate and boreal (taiga) regions of the Earth. ''Picea'' is the sole genus in the subfamily Piceoideae. Spruces are large trees, from about 20 to 60 m (about 60–200 ft) tall when mature, and have whorled branches and conical form. They can be distinguished from other members of the pine family by their needles (leaves), which are four-sided and attached singly to small persistent peg-like structures (pulvini or sterigmata) on the branches, and by their cones (without any protruding bracts), which hang downwards after they are pollinated. The needles are shed when 4–10 years old, leaving the branches rough with the retained pegs. In other similar genera, the branches are fairly smooth. Spruce are used as food plants by the larvae of some Lepidoptera (moth and butterfly) species, such as the eastern spruce budwo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Landing Gear
Landing gear is the undercarriage of an aircraft or spacecraft that is used for takeoff or landing. For aircraft it is generally needed for both. It was also formerly called ''alighting gear'' by some manufacturers, such as the Glenn L. Martin Company. For aircraft, Stinton makes the terminology distinction ''undercarriage (British) = landing gear (US)''. For aircraft, the landing gear supports the craft when it is not flying, allowing it to take off, land, and taxi without damage. Wheeled landing gear is the most common, with skis or floats needed to operate from snow/ice/water and skids for vertical operation on land. Faster aircraft have retractable undercarriages, which fold away during flight to reduce drag. Some unusual landing gear have been evaluated experimentally. These include: no landing gear (to save weight), made possible by operating from a catapult cradle and flexible landing deck: air cushion (to enable operation over a wide range of ground obstacles and wat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rhomboidal
Traditionally, in two-dimensional geometry, a rhomboid is a parallelogram in which adjacent sides are of unequal lengths and angles are non-right angled. A parallelogram with sides of equal length (equilateral) is a rhombus but not a rhomboid. A parallelogram with right angled corners is a rectangle but not a rhomboid. The term ''rhomboid'' is now more often used for a rhombohedron or a more general parallelepiped, a solid figure with six faces in which each face is a parallelogram and pairs of opposite faces lie in parallel planes. Some crystals are formed in three-dimensional rhomboids. This solid is also sometimes called a rhombic prism. The term occurs frequently in science terminology referring to both its two- and three-dimensional meaning. History Euclid introduced the term in his '' Elements'' in Book I, Definition 22, Euclid never used the definition of rhomboid again and introduced the word parallelogram in Proposition 34 of Book I; ''"In parallelogrammic areas the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rudder
A rudder is a primary control surface used to steer a ship, boat, submarine, hovercraft, aircraft, or other vehicle that moves through a fluid medium (generally aircraft, air or watercraft, water). On an aircraft the rudder is used primarily to counter adverse yaw and p-factor and is not the primary control used to turn the airplane. A rudder operates by redirecting the fluid past the hull (watercraft), hull or fuselage, thus imparting a turning or yaw (rotation), yawing motion to the craft. In basic form, a rudder is a flat plane or sheet of material attached with hinges to the craft's stern, tail, or after end. Often rudders are shaped so as to minimize Drag (physics), hydrodynamic or aerodynamic drag. On simple watercraft, a tiller—essentially, a stick or pole acting as a lever arm—may be attached to the top of the rudder to allow it to be turned by a helmsman. In larger vessels, cables, pushrods, or hydraulics may be used to link rudders to steering wheels. In typical air ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fin (aeronautics)
An aircraft stabilizer is an aerodynamic surface, typically including one or more movable control surfaces, that provides longitudinal (pitch) and/or directional (yaw) stability and control. A stabilizer can feature a fixed or adjustable structure on which any movable control surfaces are hinged, or it can itself be a fully movable surface such as a stabilator. Depending on the context, "stabilizer" may sometimes describe only the front part of the overall surface. In the conventional aircraft configuration, separate vertical (fin) and horizontal (tailplane) stabilizers form an empennage positioned at the tail of the aircraft. Other arrangements of the empennage, such as the V-tail configuration, feature stabilizers which contribute to a combination of longitudinal and directional stabilization and control. Longitudinal stability and control may be obtained with other wing configurations, including canard, tandem wing and tailless aircraft. Some types of aircraft are stabiliz ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Elevator (aeronautics)
Elevators are flight control surfaces, usually at the rear of an aircraft, which control the aircraft's pitch, and therefore the angle of attack and the lift of the wing. The elevators are usually hinged to the tailplane or horizontal stabilizer. They may be the only pitch control surface present, and are sometimes located at the front of the aircraft (early airplanes) or integrated into a rear "all-moving tailplane", also called a slab elevator or stabilator. Elevator control effectiveness The elevator is a usable up and down system that controls the plane, horizontal stabilizer usually creates a ''downward'' force which balances the nose down moment created by the wing lift force, which typically applies at a point (the wing center of lift) situated aft of the airplane's center of gravity. The effects of drag and changing the engine thrust may also result in pitch moments that need to be compensated with the horizontal stabilizer. Both the horizontal stabilizer and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tailplane
A tailplane, also known as a horizontal stabiliser, is a small lifting surface located on the tail (empennage) behind the main lifting surfaces of a fixed-wing aircraft as well as other non-fixed-wing aircraft such as helicopters and gyroplanes. Not all fixed-wing aircraft have tailplanes. Canards, tailless and flying wing aircraft have no separate tailplane, while in V-tail aircraft the vertical stabiliser, rudder, and the tail-plane and elevator are combined to form two diagonal surfaces in a V layout. The function of the tailplane is to provide stability and control. In particular, the tailplane helps adjust for changes in position of the centre of pressure or centre of gravity caused by changes in speed and attitude, fuel consumption, or dropping cargo or payload. Tailplane types The tailplane comprises the tail-mounted fixed horizontal stabiliser and movable elevator. Besides its planform, it is characterised by: *Number of tailplanes - from 0 ( tailless or canard) t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Compass
A compass is a device that shows the cardinal directions used for navigation and geographic orientation. It commonly consists of a magnetized needle or other element, such as a compass card or compass rose, which can pivot to align itself with magnetic north. Other methods may be used, including gyroscopes, magnetometers, and GPS receivers. Compasses often show angles in degrees: north corresponds to 0°, and the angles increase clockwise, so east is 90°, south is 180°, and west is 270°. These numbers allow the compass to show azimuths or bearings which are commonly stated in degrees. If local variation between magnetic north and true north is known, then direction of magnetic north also gives direction of true north. Among the Four Great Inventions, the magnetic compass was first invented as a device for divination as early as the Chinese Han Dynasty (since c. 206 BC),Li Shu-hua, p. 176 and later adopted for navigation by the Song Dynasty Chinese during the 11th centur ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Altimeter
An altimeter or an altitude meter is an instrument used to measure the altitude of an object above a fixed level. The measurement of altitude is called altimetry, which is related to the term bathymetry, the measurement of depth under water. The most common unit for altimeter calibration worldwide is hectopascals (hPa), except for North America (other than Canada ) and Japan where inches of mercury (inHg) are used. To obtain an accurate altitude reading in either feet or meters, the local barometric pressure must be calibrated correctly using the barometric formula. History The scientific principles behind the altimeter were first written by Alexander Bryce (minister), Rev. Alexander Bryce a Scottish minister and astronomer in 1772 who realised that the principles of a barometer could be adjusted to measure height. Pressure altimeter Altitude can be determined based on the measurement of atmospheric pressure. The greater the altitude, the lower the pressure. When a barometer is s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Leading Edge
The leading edge of an airfoil surface such as a wing is its foremost edge and is therefore the part which first meets the oncoming air.Crane, Dale: ''Dictionary of Aeronautical Terms, third edition'', page 305. Aviation Supplies & Academics, 1997. Characteristics Sweep Seen in plan the leading edge may be straight, curved, kinked or a combination of these. A straight leading edge may be swept or unswept, while curves or kinks always mean that part of the leading edge is swept. On a swept wing the sweep angle may differ from that of the wing, as wing sweep is conventionally measured at the airfoil 25% chord line. However on a delta wing the leading edge sweep defines the wing sweep. Radius and stagnation point A rounded leading edge helps to maintain a smooth airflow at varying angles of incidence to the airflow. Most subsonic airfoils therefore have a rounded leading edge. The degree of rounding is characterised by the profile radius at that point. The airflow divides to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cockpit
A cockpit or flight deck is the area, usually near the front of an aircraft or spacecraft, from which a Pilot in command, pilot controls the aircraft. The cockpit of an aircraft contains flight instruments on an instrument panel, and the controls that enable the pilot to fly the aircraft. In most airliners, a door separates the cockpit from the aircraft cabin. After the September 11 attacks, September 11, 2001 attacks, all major airlines Airport_security_repercussions_due_to_the_September_11_attacks#Improved_security_on_aircraft, fortified their cockpits against access by aircraft hijacking, hijackers. Etymology The word cockpit seems to have been cockpit (sailing), used as a nautical term in the 17th century, without reference to cock fighting. It referred to an area in the rear of a ship where the cockswain's station was located, the cockswain being the pilot of a smaller "boat" that could be dispatched from the ship to board another ship or to bring people ashore. The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
