I would like to do a shadowbox of a bf109g-14 in flight. I am wanting to have the plane turn towards it's left. With the left wing lowered and the right one raised. I need some help in the rudder positions for this and which ones will be doing what? I know very little of planes, this being the first I have attemptted to build. Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Chris

The rudder on the verticle stabilizer will be positoned to the right of the centerline. The left wing rudder will be down and the right up. The rudders on the horizontal stabilizers wil be level for level flight, pointed up to descend and down to climb.
You can test the effect in a moving car. Put your hand straight out the window. Pivot your thumb upwards and the wind will force your hand up. Point your thumb edge down and the wind will push your hand down.

that should read "ailerons" on the wings, and "elevators" for the horizontal stabilizers. The rudder is on the vertical tail.

Here's a gif-animation showing aircraft flight controls: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_control_surfaces

Yeah, what he said! Brain

salut,
to make an aircraft going left with the left wing down,all you need is to pitch the left wing down and set the rudder on the left wing up! on the right wing down! thats all.
you dont need to set the fin stabiliser to any position,the fin stabiliser is used to set the nose to the right or left.you dont need the fin stabiliser to fly a curve.

but,when you set your wing rudders to any position,your aircraft is doing a tilt movement,until you set the rudders to a neutral position. that means:
when your models rudders are set to any position,other than neutral,your aircraft tilts.in a curve flight,the rudders arent set for the most time.only for the effect to tilt the aircraft to the right flying position.you can show the elevator ( your horizontal stabilizer on the fin ) maybe in a rudder position set up,an aircraft is flying a curve with the helpf of the elevators,when the aicraft is laying diagonally in a curve you have to pull it up.thats how it works

for an realistic situation i would go like that:
just a minimal set of the wing rudders (called ailerons) and a set of the fin horizontal stabiliser ( called elevators )

set your rudders to minimal! just a few degrees:-)it looks more realistic

cheers

The set of the control surfaces depends on how hard the pilot is maneuvering. It is normal for a gentle left bank for the ailerons to be deflected left up, right down and the rudder slightly to the right, elevators level. An aircraft banking hard (more than 45deg) to the left the control deflections would be ailerons left up, right down, rudder RIGHT, elevators slightly up. This is because over 45deg the elevator becomes the rudder and the rudder holds the nose up, preventing a spiral dive. These are general rules but different aircraft fly different ways, and without knowing the flight characteristics of the Bf109 (tricky, with the later marks getting trickier) I could not give a definate answer. All control deflections should be small (full deflection is probably less than 15deg) and as the 109 controls were very stiff at high speed full deflection is probably not achievable. Good luck!

I don't want to sound stupid, but, when you fellas start talking about elevators and ailerons. I really don't know what your talking about. I do appreciate the help, but , my knowledge of aircraft is very limited. If I could get more clarification please help.
Thanks,
Chris

Ailerons are on the trailing (back) edges of the wings, Elevators are on the horizontal part of the tail, rudders are on the vertical part of the tail. Inboard of the ailerons are the flaps (if fitted), these are lowered, usually in stages to assist low speed flight. The ailerons work in opposition, ie if the left one goes up the right goes down. Elevators move together by the same amount, if more that one rudder is fitted (B25, Lancaster, Do17) the rudders move together. Flaps move together to change the shape of the wing to a higher lift section.
Apparently the 109G had good hanling at low and medium speeds but at high speed (over 400mph) the ailerons stiffened up so much as to be almost immoveable. What theatre are you planning for your model?

Thanks Guys for the help. I have a understanding of the controls, what they are, and what they do.
Andrew I'm not quite sure what you me by the theatre I'm going to have. My idea as far as the shadowbox is to have the plane above the clouds going to it's left. Maybe have some smaller aircraft in the background. I'm not sure what scale they would need to be. It's all in the planning stages know.
Thanks again,
Chris

Hi Chris,

If the Bf 109 is to turn left, it will have to bank to the left. "Bank" is the term for the tilt of the wings. (An acft can turn without banking, just via rudder. This is known as a skid and is aerodynamically inefficent.)

To bank to the left, the left aileron is deflected up, which forces the left wing down; the right aileron deflects down, forcing the right wing up. This tilts the wing's lifting surface in the direction you want to go, and the lifties allow the airfoil to move in that direction.

The rudder is also deflected in the direction you want to turn. In a left turn, it will be deflected to the left. One can turn with the rudder deflected opposite the direction of intended turn, this is a slip. If you really want to stomp the rudder, you can actually turn opposite your bank. VERY aerodynamically inefficent.

The amount of rudder one uses depends on many factors, but mainly speed. The slower you are, the more the control surfaces must be deflected. At high speeds some planes hardly needed any rudder.

To turn, when you bank, the ailerons' changing of lift results in Adverse Yaw--the nose initially goes the opposite direction of bank. Thus, the rudder usually leads the turn to keep the nose pointing in the correct direction.

Much good info above. "Top rudder" and "bottom rudder" are used with jets and aerobatic prop planes a great deal--the ailerons are NOT used in many circumstances.

He means is your diorama early war, Battle of Britain, Russian Front, Afrika, etc.?




This concept is known as forced perspective. Any scale smaller than the forground scale will give the illusion of the smaller being farther away. The greater the diference in scale, the greater the distance seems. What scale will be your taste, and how much space you have.

By theatre I mean Eastern Front, Home Defence, Italy, Western Front. Markings and camo are different in each area. Sorry about using jargon. I've never built a shadow box so can't advise on scales. Enjoy it, i'd like to see how it turns out