Talk:Control surface

Grouping control surfaces and winglets

I think grouping the active-control winglets – especially ones with “winglet” literally in their name – in with control surfaces isn't as good a way as it could be to emphasize that they're involved with flight control. I think it'd be better to make a second table for active winglets (and canards), include that in Winglets, and either also include the table here or just mention in a one-sentence paragraph that there are these special winglets that are also effective control surfaces. They are both things at once, so it's a weird call to make, but I think of flaps and rudders when I think of control surfaces on a plane. --Brendan (talk) 05:54, 24 August 2014 (CDT)

Yeah that should be reorganized: Winglets is about short wings (and it doesn't matter if they are controllable or not) while control surfaces are anything which is controllable? Now I'm not an aviation export, but aren't winglets usually those (usually) short vertical surfaces at the end of the wing? And strictly speaking those don't move so the current system would fit better. It's only that currently there is no use of real-life winglets. — xZise [talk] 10:22, 24 August 2014 (CDT)

Yes, wing-tip devices are the usual meaning of "winglet" in real-life; Squad vocabulary strikes again. Accepting their definition in context of KSP, winglets are short wings, though not ones attached as wing-tip devices.

The current system has short wings with active tilt lumped into one table along with flaps and rudders, which I think is a mess. Active winglets should be split into a second table. The question is, are they a subset of Winglets or of Control surfaces? Or both? My gut feeling is active winglets should be in the same table with static winglets on Winglet because that page is concerned with short wings. They should be in a second table on Control surface because the page is concerned with what responds to pitch/yaw/roll but there's a big difference between them and "control surfaces". What do you think? --Brendan (talk) 16:32, 24 August 2014 (CDT)

So you want to suggest three types: Control surfaces, winglets and controllable winglets? This sound reasonable to me. — xZise [talk] 13:50, 25 August 2014 (CDT)