[Airplane Flying Handbook] Wing Flaps

Airplanes can be designed to fly fast or slow. High speed requires thin, moderately cambered airfoils with a small wing area, whereas the high lift needed for low speeds is obtained with thicker highly cambered airfoils with a larger wing area. Many attempts have been made to compromise this conflicting requirement of high cruise and slow landing speeds.

Since an airfoil cannot have two different cambers at the same time, one of two things must be done. Either the airfoil can be a compromise, or a cruise airfoil can be combined with a device for increasing the camber of the airfoil for low-speed flight. One method for varying an airfoil's camber is the addition of trailing edge flaps. Engineers call these devices a high-lift system.

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Posted By w3n-a to Airplane Flying Handbook at 1/03/2009 09:58:00 PM __._,_.___

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