# A few questions about the Spitfire



## mikeb (Dec 13, 2019)

I am making an animation & i have a couple of questions about ww2 aircraft, starting with the spitfire.

If anyone can help it would make my life (& my animations) a lot better..

So to start with at full speed (attacking speed) would the rudder still be effective?


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## Zipper730 (Dec 27, 2019)

mikeb said:


> I am making an animation & i have a couple of questions about ww2 aircraft, starting with the spitfire.


I clicked on your showreel and those drawings are fucking awesome. Excellent work!


> If anyone can help it would make my life (& my animations) a lot better..
> 
> So to start with at full speed (attacking speed) would the rudder still be effective?


That's a good question, I'll tag some other members who might know this sort of stuff...



 fubar57


 MiTasol

P
 pbehn

S
 Shortround6

S
 stona


 swampyankee


 syscom3

T
 tyrodtom


 v2

W
 wuzak


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## stona (Dec 28, 2019)

The rudder would still be effective.
It would cause the aircraft to skid if applied in an uncoordinated fashion (without other control inputs), not generally a desirable effect. It would be undesirable when making a gunnery pass because in a skid the nose of the aircraft (and the guns) are not pointing in the same direction as that in which the aircraft is flying.

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## Phantomphixer (Jun 28, 2020)

Yes, Same answer as Stona above . FYI rudder becomes more effective at speed. The rudder shape and chord changes through the life of the aircraft. were to give more bite at lower speeds to compensate for increased torque/power engines

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## swampyankee (Jun 28, 2020)

First, what do you mean by "effective?" 

Unboosted controls, which were used on almost all WW2 fighters, can require too much force to deflect far at high speeds, but this is a problem that tends not to afflict rudders, because legs are much stronger than arms (to confirm: get a number of people to try doing a one-legged deep knee bend, then try doing a one-armed pull-up. I predict far fewer people can do the second than the first) and because the rudder is used to counteract adverse (or proverse) yaw from the ailerons (airplanes don't turn with their rudders; they turn with the ailerons), destabilizing effects of power, and to deliberately slip the aircraft. 

Controls also rely on the force of the air to function. As aircraft speed up, the force on the aircraft from the air increases. Since the amount of force a control surface can produce depends (roughly) linearly on deflection (the angle it makes relative to its normal location) and by the square of the airspeed, more deflection is required to generate a given force at low speeds, and it's possible for the amount of deflection to simply be too small to produce enough forces at low speed. Designing unboosted controls to work well over a wide speed range is difficult, which is one reason modern combat aircraft almost universally use irreversible, _.i.e.,_ no force feedback between control surface and stick, hydraulic controls with artificial feel. 

So, to directly answer your question: the rudder on a Spitfire would be effective at high speed. The pilot would not need to waggle it around too much.


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