|
Re: IL-2, rare outer protruding wing-tubes
Hi!
They are aileron mass balances. Their function is to prevent aileron flutter. Kirche writes about the very same thing as RSwank.
On early Il-2 they had odd mechanism where the mass and it's lever was ahead of wing leading edge and it was connected to the aileron via pushrod. I am not sure if that was rare actually as at some period all Il-2 did have it from factory. Later the balance was put somewhere else or aileron hinge line was moved backwards.
There is minimum for mass moment (= mass x lever length) and designer would like to add as little mass as possible leading to minimum lever length. I guess the mechanism was needed because there was no room for the needed lever length between aileron and wing rear spar. (BTW I have performed this mass moment determination task at work).
Cheers,
Kari
|