The Art of Guns Combat by Dennis Greene
	BANK Many beginning pilots confuse bank with roll but they are not the same. You combine pitch and roll movements to make a banking turn. By pitching the nose up and applying right stick, you cause the plane to bank to the right. A left bank is the opposite, you pitch up and roll left (push stick left). A banking turn is changing the angle of the nose and the direction of flight. A side effect of banking turns is that you will lose lift and speed. If you want to keep your altitude and energy (speed), it's a good idea to apply a bit of extra throttle just before a bank turn. So banking is really another way of saying turning, not rolling. CONTROL SURFACES You've heard me talk about elevators, rudders, and ailerons; these are just some of the control surfaces that allow you to control movement of your plane. Your engine provides thrust, so it's another means of controlling movement. Two of the forces - lift and drag - do not act on all parts of the plane equally. Plane designers have taken advantage of this fact to build features to allow you control of your plane with "control surfaces." These control surfaces are: Propeller - this is a control surface that many seem to forget. This allows you to manipulate thrust. By varying the throttle setting, you cause the propeller to spin at different speeds. The faster it spins, the more forward thrust you have available. Elevator - these are vertically-tilting sections of the horizontal part of the tail which effect pitch by influencing drag. You control the elevator with the forward and backward movement of the stick. When the elevators are down (stick forward), the imbalance in drag on the plane makes the nose tilt down. This is called "decreasing the angle of attack" and it causes the plane to dive. Stick back cants the elevator up, causing the nose to tilt upward and the plane climbs. Wings - Many don't consider these to be control surfaces, but they are. When you change the angle of attack (AoA), by using elevators, the airflow over the wing changes. A greater AoA creates more lift - to a point. If this angle gets too large and the plane's airspeed is not high enough to maintain a smooth flow, turbulence will take away all the lift. Without lift, the plane will stall and drop like a brick. A smaller AoA equates to less lift. Ailerons - These are the control surfaces you will pay more attention to than any of the others. They are like the elevators only on the wings. Click to continue		Wounded FW in WW2 Fighters. When you move your stick to either side each aileron reacts opposite to the other, with one aileron rising and the dropping down. Suddenly, one wing gains some extra lift, and the other one gets stuck with more drag. The former wing rises, while the latter drops, causing a roll. Your aircraft turns (banks) in the direction of the roll - the direction you moved the stick. Flaps - These are built into the trailing edge of the wings and may be extended or retracted when needed. Flaps are most often used while landing but they can be used for other purposes as well. Extending flaps, "flaps down", has several simultaneous results. First, lift is increased so the plane rises; next, drag is also increased, so the plane slows down. Overall (and this is the most important), the flaps lower the speed at which the aircraft will stall. This allows you to make a landing with a lower airspeed than you could make without flaps and still not stall. When you retract flaps, the plane will drop a bit because of a sudden loss of lift. If you use flaps to take off, don't retract them too soon after take-off or you'll find yourself landing suddenly instead of rising! Pilots also use flaps in turns to take advantage of the extra lift in the turn, allowing them to turn in a smaller radius. We'll cover that in greater detail in the following chapters. Rudder - This is the horizontally pivoting section of the vertical part of the tail. Through drag, it affects the yaw of the plane, pointing the nose left or right. Not using rudder enough will cause a rough ride and a very rough landing. Using a rudder too much or too often can quickly lead to loss of control of your plane. INERTIA All good pilots are aware of the effects of inertia on their aircraft and on their bodies. Pilots who do not understand inertia crash a lot. Inertia defined is - The tendency of any object to resist change to its state of motion. What that means is that if your aircraft is moving in a particular direction at a particular speed it tends to stay at that speed and direction and resists change. Likewise, if you or your plane are not moving, there is resistance to motion. Go to Part IV
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