Elevon
aircraft control surface that combines the functions of the elevator and the aileron
Elevons or tailerons are aircraft control surfaces that combine the functions of the elevator (used for pitch control) and the aileron (used for roll control), hence the name. They are frequently used on tailless aircraft such as flying wings. An elevon that is not part of the main wing, but instead is a separate tail surface, is a stabilator (but stabilators are also used for pitch control only, with no roll function, as on the Piper Cherokee series of aircraft).
Elevons are installed on each side of the aircraft at the trailing edge of the wing. When moved in the same direction (up or down) they will cause a pitching force (nose up or nose down) to be applied to the airframe. When moved differentially, (one up, one down) they will cause a rolling force to be applied. These forces may be applied simultaneously by appropriate positioning of the elevons e.g. one wing's elevons completely down and the other wing's elevons partly down.
An aircraft with elevons is controlled as though the pilot still has separate aileron and elevator surfaces at their disposal, controlled by the yoke or stick. The inputs of the two controls are mixed either mechanically or electronically to provide the appropriate position for each elevon.
The public source identifies “Elevon” as aircraft control surface that combines the functions of the elevator and the aileron. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Elevon, aircraft and control.
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This entry incorporates text from “Elevon” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.