Has anyone seen a homebuilt or GA airplane with flaps that operate like this?
At full extension, it's geometrically equivalent to a slotted flap that has the pivot point well below the wing (see overlay in red above), but the 4-bar linkage accomplishes this without the drag of having a bracket hanging in the breeze, and of course the motion doesn't follow an arc like the simpler pivoted slotted flap.
It seems to me this could be implemented with one linkage at each end of the flap panel (and perhaps one or more mid-span) and a torque tube connecting each linkage through the upper/forward pivot point. Anyone see any obvious gotchas with this scheme, or reasons why we don't see it on homebuilts?
I made a simple animation to help visualize the range of motion:
At full extension, it's geometrically equivalent to a slotted flap that has the pivot point well below the wing (see overlay in red above), but the 4-bar linkage accomplishes this without the drag of having a bracket hanging in the breeze, and of course the motion doesn't follow an arc like the simpler pivoted slotted flap.
It seems to me this could be implemented with one linkage at each end of the flap panel (and perhaps one or more mid-span) and a torque tube connecting each linkage through the upper/forward pivot point. Anyone see any obvious gotchas with this scheme, or reasons why we don't see it on homebuilts?
I made a simple animation to help visualize the range of motion:
