Welcome to NextCraft™ High Lift Research pages

This section of NextCraft™ was created to form a central database of information on flaps, slats, spoilers, and other devices, so we might use them on our models. These pages offer a variety of contributions by various authors. It's my intention to properly credit all material, so if you are the "unknown author"or know who the author is, on any of the uncredited files, let me know and I'll fix it immediately. Thank you to everyone who has already contributed. I'm doing research for a trainer-type high-lift plane, here.

Aerodynamicists & Engineers

If you are an engineer or mechanic, and would be willing to share drawings of flap, slat, and spoiler mechanisms with us, please do, and I'll credit you properly for your contribution. Also... There is little, if any, airfoil performance data for flap configurations at the Reynolds numbers we're flying at. If you have such data and would share it with us here, please email me. We will all learn something in the process! Thank you. - Mike James

Fowler flaps, movable slats, movable leading edge flaps, spoilers, speedbrakes in various configurations, and other devices are what makes an otherwise cruise-optimized wing on a full-scale aircraft feasible, especially at takeoff and landing. Some of these can be "faked", by using offset hinges, as in the animation below, but some versions can't. (i.e. triple-slotted flaps on a big Boeing jet.

Kronus Robotics page to learn how to modify servos for use as jackscrew drivers for flaps.

Unless otherwise noted, all content on this site is ©Copyright by Mike James - www.mikejamesmedia.com - All Rights Reserved
NOTE: I am not at liberty to redistribute any of the documentation used to build any of the 3D models on this site.