Ailerons and "flaps"

[davidpsummers]

On the ailerons, what does "deploy" do?  How are they different when "extended" and "retracted"?

Also, I see references to "flaps" (ie the things that don't control pitch but do increase lift).  I seems to me that ailerons can be used as "flaps".  How?  Is that what "extend" doesn?

Edited June 13, 2016 by davidpsummers

[bewing]

"Deploy extended" forces the control surface to "full on". "Deploy retracted" sets it to normal operation (control via SAS and keys). Direction = "Inverted" combined with  "deploy" forces negative full.

This deploy stuff is useful for recovering spent stages. You can set their deploy settings just before separation, and they will stay that way forever. 

[Jarin]

To use them as "flaps" they need to be somewhat close to the center of gravity (or rather, the axis of pitch rotation). Set them so they deploy towards the ground. This increases drag, but also lift, which allows for takeoff and landing at lower velocities.

Edited June 13, 2016 by Jarin

[fourfa]

As anyone else seen the deploy direction change seemingly at random on successive launches of the same plane?  I have one with three sets of ailerons on the big airliner wings (outer one for roll control, all three as action-groupped flaps) and the deploy direction seems to change every time on at least one pair of flaps.

Edited June 14, 2016 by fourfa

[bewing]

@fourfa: I've seen what you describe many times in 1.0.5 and previous, but I haven't seen it happen in 1.1 yet. I'm not using the feature as much as I used to, though.

[swjr-swis]

3 hours ago, fourfa said:

As anyone else seen the deploy direction change seemingly at random on successive launches of the same plane?  I have one with three sets of ailerons on the big airliner wings (outer one for roll control, all three as action-groupped flaps) and the deploy direction seems to change every time on at least one pair of flaps.

I think the problem there is that if it's too close to the center of mass, the game code can make the default deploy direction flip, even mid-flight, since it appears to use the position of control surfaces relative to the CoM to decide this. Also, that close and any slight difference in mass distribution (fuel, cargo?) causing the CoM to shift can have the same effect.

[C04L]

make ailerons flap by disabling all axis and then assign deploy to a action grp. tis what I do

[fourfa]

6 hours ago, swjr-swis said:

I think the problem there is that if it's too close to the center of mass, the game code can make the default deploy direction flip, even mid-flight, since it appears to use the position of control surfaces relative to the CoM to decide this. Also, that close and any slight difference in mass distribution (fuel, cargo?) causing the CoM to shift can have the same effect.

That does make sense.  I have been using that plane with different cargo loads.