Word: aileron
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Dates: during 1920-1929
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...overcome the beginning of a spin the pilot must use his ailerons (small auxiliary wings fixed in the back edge of the wings). When one aileron rises, its opposite drops. That gives an opposed effect which ordinarily permits banking and turning from a straight level flying course. It also overcomes spins, if the pilot is alert and maneuvers quickly. But at the stalling angle the ailerons work sluggishly when...
...last week announced as effectively tested. The interceptor is a second long narrow wing set just back of the slot at the main wing front. Like the auxiliary wing in front of it, it normally lies within the main wing surface. The interceptor is connected by bars to the aileron of its wing...
...flying at the stalling angle with the automatic slots open one wing drops, the pilot raises the aileron on the opposite side. The aileron movement raises its interceptor to a vertical position. The interceptor interrupts the air flowing through the slot before it. Thus the wing gets no air lift on that side and it drops until it is level with the previously dropping wing on the other side of the fuselage. Thus does the pilot have a good opportunity to prevent a spin and to pull his plane out of its stall...
Finally, he designed a plane. Inspired by the gull, it looked like the gull. It was named Bonney's Gull. It was fat in body with graceful curving wings. Bonney followed the bird principle, abandoned the aileron, or balancing contrivance which airplane designers have always considered an essential feature of stability in the air. His plane had new features: an expanding and contracting tail, like a blackbird's, for varying loads; variable camber in the wings, so that they could flatten out like a gull's when flying level; a varying angle of incidence to its wings...