Douglas SBD Dauntless dropping a bomb, circa in 1942

Dive brakes or dive flaps are deployed to slow down an aircraft when in a dive. They often consist of a metal flap that is lowered against the air flow, thus creating

drag Drag or The Drag may refer to: Places * Drag, Norway, a village in Tysfjord municipality, Nordland, Norway * ''Drág'', the Hungarian name for Dragu Commune in Sălaj County, Romania * Drag (Austin, Texas), the portion of Guadalupe Street adj ...

and reducing dive speed.Crane, Dale: ''Dictionary of Aeronautical Terms, third edition'', page 168. Aviation Supplies & Academics, 1997. In the past, dive brakes were mostly used on

dive bomber A dive bomber is a bomber aircraft that Dive (aviation), dives directly at its targets in order to provide greater accuracy for the Aerial bomb, bomb it drops. Diving towards the target simplifies the bomb's trajectory and allows the pilot to ...

s, which needed to dive very steeply, but without exceeding their red line speed, in order to drop their

bomb A bomb is an explosive weapon that uses the exothermic reaction of an explosive material to provide an extremely sudden and violent release of energy. Detonations inflict damage principally through ground- and atmosphere-transmitted mechan ...

s accurately. The airbrakes or spoilers fitted to gliders often function both as landing aids, to adjust the approach angle, and to keep the aircraft's speed below its maximum permissible

indicated air speed Indicated airspeed (IAS) is the airspeed of an aircraft as measured by its pitot-static system and displayed by the airspeed indicator (ASI). This is the pilots' primary airspeed reference. This value is not corrected for installation error, inst ...

in a vertical dive. Most modern

combat aircraft A military aircraft is any fixed-wing or rotary-wing aircraft that is operated by a legal or insurrectionary armed service of any type. Military aircraft can be either combat or non-combat: * Combat aircraft are designed to destroy enemy equi ...

are equipped with air brakes, which perform the same function as dive brakes.

Applications

* Aichi D3A * Dornier Do 217 (attachable dorsal/ventral "petal" design at extreme rear of fuselage) *

Douglas SBD Dauntless The Douglas SBD Dauntless is a World War II American naval scout plane and dive bomber that was manufactured by Douglas Aircraft from 1940 through 1944. The SBD ("Scout Bomber Douglas") was the United States Navy's main carrier-based scout/ ...

* Junkers Ju 87 * Nelson Hummingbird PG-185B * Northrop BT * Schweizer SGS 2-33 * A-36 Invader * SB2U Vindicator * Blackburn Firebrand

References

Aircraft controls {{aviation-stub