An aileron is a hinged control surface built into the trailing edge of each of an aircraft's wings that, working in an opposed pair, one deflecting down as the other deflects up, changes the lift each wing produces to roll the aircraft around its lengthwise axis; the name comes from the French word for little wing. The English scientist Matthew Piers Watt Boulton described an aileron-like device in an 1864 paper and patented it in 1868, decades before powered flight was practical, and the Wright brothers obtained a 1906 patent covering their own method of lateral control, which led to years of patent litigation with the rival aviator Glenn Curtiss. The term aileron itself first appeared in French aviation writing around 1908, and by about 1915 ailerons had displaced wing warping and other earlier lateral-control methods to become the standard means of banking an aircraft, the role they still hold today.
Facts
SignificanceThe aileron is a hinged control surface on the trailing edge of a fixed-wing aircraft's wing that provides roll control. It displaced the Wright brothers' wing-warping system to become the standard roll-control method on virtually every fixed-wing aircraft built since the early twentieth century. 1 Partially Attested
Patent or First-Use DateYear-only precision. The source states Boulton was the first to patent an aileron control system in 1868, four years after describing the concept in his 1864 paper. No exact day or month for the 1868 patent is given by this source. Connections
Associated With
The Airplane, Inventions The aileron is a hinged flight control surface forming part of the trailing edge of a fixed-wing airplane wing.
Source Aileron (Wikipedia)
In Field
Source Aileron (Wikipedia)
Sources
1. Aileron (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia FoundationHistory section
Although there were previously many conflicting claims over who first invented the aileron and its function, i.e., lateral or roll control, the flight control device was invented and described by the British scientist and metaphysicist Matthew Piers Watt Boulton in his 1864 paper On Aërial Locomotion.
Lead section
An aileron (French for 'little wing' or 'fin') is a hinged flight control surface usually forming part of the trailing edge of each wing of a fixed-wing aircraft.
History section, 1868 patent sentence
He was the first to patent an aileron control system in 1868.
- In Group: Aircraft Wing Aerodynamic Design Features, lead sentence
In Field: Aerospace Engineering, Categories
Aircraft controls
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