JANUARY I S T ,

FLIGHT

i6

1942

BY TUBE ALL THE WAY

A Simple Flying-control System Which
Lends Itself to Standardisation

A typical layout of the Saunders control, with main surfaces and tabs operated by push-pull and rotary movement respectively.

IE earliest aircraft had the pilot's control members

connected to the control surfaces, such as elevator,
rudder, wing warp or ailerons, by stranded steel
cables. That was scarcely surprising, for the cable combined simplicity with low weight and great strength. Some
of the pioneers used single controls for the ailerons. On
the early Henry Farman " box kites," for example, a single
cable ran from the joy stick to the underside of the aileron,
and this control surface used to hang down limp, with
the control cable slack, until the machine had gathered
enough speed for the air to lift it into flying position. The
next step was to add a return cable, which held both
ailerons up even when the aircraft was stationary.
In
flight, one aileron moved up from the neutral position when
the other was pulled down. That meant but a slight complication, and the system of operating all controls by cable
remained in use for very many years.
Even after the aircraft itself was refined by streamlining
it was customary to leave the control cables on the outside,
particularly those to the rudder and elevator. Sometimes
they ran inside the fuselage to a point near the tail, where
they came out into the open to be connected to the cranks
of their respective control surfaces. Tnis had the advanEYE END

BEARING
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SWIVEL
HOUSING

tage of accessibility for servicing, but it also meant that

wear was excessive, for dust and grit would get into the
guides and wear away one or more strands of the cable,
and a constant watch had to be kept for frayed control
cables. Another disadvantage was that, no matter what
precautions were taken to pfe-stretch the cables, they would
stretch, and frequent adjustments of the turnbuckles were
necessary.
L a c k of S t a n d a r d i s a t i o n

6A

Since those early days every designer has had his owi
ideas of how flying controls should be arranged. In some
of the earlier flying boats a simple push-pull system of
tubes was used with fairly good resultsf but nothing like
standardisation was achieved, nor even suggested, so far
as we remember. Other control systems came algng, and
some were very ingenious. The majority came to be used
for controls other than flying controls, such as for throttles,
flaps, trimming tabs and undercarriages.
Recently a system has been introduced for the main
flying controls which appears to have the advantage of
simplicity, low weight and robustness. Known as the
Saunders flying control, it has been approved by the Air
UNIVERSAL
JOINT

CONNECTORS
AND
ADJUSTER

BULKHEAD
BEARING
AND HOUSING

ZSfljBSSA

SQUARE

SHAFT

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TUBE

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