I have been working on a conceptual design of a tandem wing. It appears with full span elevators (25% of chord) on the rear wing there appears to be enough control authority in pitch but also enough left for roll control using asymmetric deflection -i.e elevons. Are there tandem wings that use this control scheme (Elevons on the rear wing with no control surfaces on the forward wing) ? I have not found any.
An obvious benefit is that the control system is quite simple with the forward wing entirely void of control surfaces. On the flip side such a scheme, unlike tandem wings with full span slotted elevators on the front wing, are restricted to a lower lift coefficient ~1.5 versus ~2.0 with slotted flap elevators on the forward wing. Are there any other issues?
An obvious benefit is that the control system is quite simple with the forward wing entirely void of control surfaces. On the flip side such a scheme, unlike tandem wings with full span slotted elevators on the front wing, are restricted to a lower lift coefficient ~1.5 versus ~2.0 with slotted flap elevators on the forward wing. Are there any other issues?
