Aircraft Primary Flight Control Surfaces Explained | Ailerons, Elevators, and Rudders

Aircraft flight control systems consist of primary and secondary systems. The ailerons, elevator (or stabilator), and rudder constitute the primary control system and are required to control an aircraft safely during flight.

the ailerons are the flight control surfaces at the outboard trailing edge of each wing and move in opposite direction from each other. If the one side goes up then the other side will go down and vice versa. This will create different forces in each wings. The one with the aileron down will have increased lift and the one with ailerons up will have reduced lift. Now we have up and down acting forces away from the center of the gravity. The net effect? The aircraft will then roll. That is to say it will rotate about its longitudinal axis.

The elevator are the flight control surfaces that are situated at the tail part of an airplane, on a horizontal tail and rotate up and down simultaneously, unlike the ailerons. As they move up or down, which is achieved through linkages, in older aircrafts, and through fly-by-wire systems in modern airliners, there is a net up or down force. When the elevator moves down, since it increase the chamber, the lift on the horizontal will increase. This increment in lift will create an upward force away from the center of gravity. Result? The aircraft will rotate nose down about its center of gravity. In the same way the nose can be pointed up just by moving the elevators up.

Rudder is the surface that is located at the tail part on a vertical stabilizer and can rotate side to side about its hinge axis. They are simply the elevators, turned vertical. But unlike the elevators, Rudders are controlled by the rudder pedals on an aircraft not through control stick though the mechanisms are about the same. Okay, When the rudder are deflected to the left as seen here then the aerodynamic force to the RIGHT is created. Its same as the creation of more lift as the elevator does, but its sideways. And as the force is created to the RIGHT AND away from the center of gravity, the nose will then rotate towards LEFT.

Video Credits:
1. https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=568081 by Piotr Jaworski; PioM
2. By Jjw - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=12872799
3. https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=566537 by Glenn Research Center, NASA
4. https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1392713 by Glenn Research Center, NASA
5. https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=566665 by Glenn Research Center, NASA

#primaryflightcontrols #aileron #elevator #rudder #flightcontrolsurfaces #airplanecontrols

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