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Mansa Musa was the ruler of the Mali Empire in West Africa. Details recorded here should be sourced; unknown information is left blank.
MORE →Reflects the personal views, recollections, and perspective of the author, Mike Davis.
This is a personal recollection on the Move fire on May 13, 1985
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A flaperon (portmanteau of flap and aileron) on an aircraft wing is a type of control surface that combines the functions of both flaps and ailerons. Some kitplanes have flaperons for simplicity of manufacture, while large commercial aircraft such as the Boeing 747, 767, 777, and 787 may have a flaperon between the flaps and aileron. The 787 has a SpoileFlaperon that combines the action of spoilers, flaps and ailerons into one control surface.
In addition to controlling the roll or bank of an aircraft, as do conventional ailerons, both flaperons can be lowered together to reduce stall speed, similarly to a set of flaps.
On a plane with flaperons, the pilot still has the standard separate controls for ailerons and flaps, but the flap control also varies the flaperon's range of movement. A mechanical device called a "mixer" is used to combine the pilot's input into the flaperons. While the use of flaperons rather than ailerons and flaps might seem to be a simplification, some complexity remains through the intricacies of the mixer.
Some aircraft, such as the Denney Kitfox, suspend the flaperons below the wing (rather in the manner of slotted flaps) to provide undisturbed airflow at high angles of attack or low airspeeds.[1] When the flaperon surface is hinged below the trailing edge of a wing, they are sometimes named "Junkers flaperons", from the doppelflügel (lit., "double wing") type of trailing edge surfaces used on a number of Junkers aircraft of the 1930s, such as the Junkers Ju 52 airliner, and the iconic Junkers Ju 87 Stuka World War II dive bomber.[citation needed]
Research seeks[when?] to coordinate the functions of aircraft flight control surfaces (ailerons, elevators, elevons, flaps, and flaperons) so as to reduce weight, cost, and drag, and thereby achieve improved control response, reduced complexity, and reduced radar visibility for stealth purposes. Beneficiaries of such research might include drones (UAVs) and the latest fighter aircraft. [citation needed]
These research approaches include flexible wings and fluidics:
In flexible wings, much or all of a wing surface can change shape in flight to deflect air flow. The X-53 Active Aeroelastic Wing is a NASA effort. The Adaptive Compliant Wing is a military and commercial effort.[2][3][4] This may be seen as a return to the wing warping used and patented by the Wright brothers.
In fluidics, forces in vehicles occur via circulation control,[clarification needed] in which larger, more complex mechanical parts are replaced by smaller simpler fluidic systems (slots which emit air flows), where larger forces in fluids are diverted by smaller jets or flows of fluid intermittently, to change the direction of vehicles.[5][6][7] In this use, fluidics promises lower mass and costs (as little as half), and response times, as well as simplicity.[citation needed][clarification needed]
Source: Wikipedia. Article content is retrieved live through the MediaWiki API.
A flaperon (portmanteau of flap and aileron) on an aircraft wing is a type of control surface that combines the functions of both flaps and ailerons. Some kitplanes have flaperons for simplicity of manufacture, while large commercial aircraft such as the Boeing 747, 767, 777, and 787 may have a flaperon between the flaps and aileron. The 787 has a SpoileFlaperon that combines the action of spoilers, flaps and ailerons into one control surface.
A variable-position horizontal stabilizer changes the pitch simultaneously with the flaperon setting. Normally the horizontal stabilizer also known as tailplane is fixed and has a hinged elevator, a stabilator is another method that combines the functions of an elevator and a horizontal stabilizer. The variable-position horizontal stabilizer is governed by the flaperon setting: the settings of the flaperon control produce corresponding changes to the stabilizer angle of incidence, thus defining the trim airspeed in relation to the flaperon requirements. The conventional elevator remains in trail, minimizing trim drag. Flaperon settings are used to optimize the lift and drag of a wing. When the flight requires low speed the flaperons are in a positive position and when the flight requires high speed flaperons are in a negative position.
The disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 on 8 March 2014 led to a multinational search effort in Southeast Asia and the southern Indian Ocean that became the most expensive search in aviation history. Despite delays, the search of the priority search area was to be completed around May 2015. On 29 July 2015, a piece of marine debris, later confirmed to be a flaperon from Flight 370, was found on Réunion Island. On 20 December 2016, it was announced that an unsearched area of around 25,000 square kilometres (9,700 sq mi), and approximately centred on location 34°S 93°E, was the most likely impact location for flight MH370. The search was suspended on 17 January 2017. In October 2017, the final drift study believed the most likely impact location to be at around 35.6°S 92.8°E / -35.6; 92.8 (CSIRO crash area). The search based on these coordinates was resumed in January 2018 by Ocean Infinity, a private company; it ended in June 2018 without success. Ships and aircraft from Malaysia, China, India, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, Vietnam, the United Kingdom, and the United States were involved in the search of the southern Indian Ocean. Satellite imagery was also made available by Tomnod to the general public so they could help with the search through crowdsourcing efforts. In March 2022, Ocean Infinity CEO Oliver Plunkett announced that the company was ready to seek approval from the Malaysian government for a search as early as the beginning of 2023. In June 2024, Ocean Infinity submitted a plan to the Malaysian government to continue the search over 15,000 square kilometres (5,800 sq mi) off the coast of Western Australia, with the cabinet approving the plan in principle under a $70 million 'no find, no fee' arrangement in December 2024. Final approval was granted in March 2025 and Ocean Infinity began their search. In April 2025, the search was once again suspended. On 30 December 2025, Ocean Infinity resumed searching for the missing aircraft, using the Armada 86 05 vessel. On 8 March 2026, Ocean Infinity announced that their search concluded as of 23 January 2026 without any findings.
The timeline of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 lists events associated with the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370—a scheduled, commercial flight operated by Malaysia Airlines from Kuala Lumpur International Airport to Beijing Capital International Airport on 8 March 2014 with 227 passengers and 12 crew. Air traffic control lost contact with Flight 370 less than an hour into the flight, after which it was tracked by military radar crossing the Malay Peninsula and was last located over the Andaman Sea. Analysis of automated communications between the aircraft and a satellite communications network has determined that the aircraft flew into the southern Indian Ocean, before communication ended shortly after 08:19 (UTC+8:00). The disappearance triggered a multinational search effort that later became the most expensive search operation in aviation history. During the weeks following Flight 370's disappearance, search operations focused on waters in Southeast Asia and an investigation into the disappearance was opened. After a week of searching, Malaysia announced that analysis of communications between the aircraft and a satellite communications network had found that Flight 370 continued to fly for several hours after it lost contact with air traffic control. Its last communication on the network was made along one of two arcs stretching north-west into Central Asia and southwest into the southern Indian Ocean. The northern arc was discounted and the focus of the search shifted to a remote area of the southern Indian Ocean. On 18 March, a surface search in the southern Indian Ocean, led by Australia, began; it continued until 28 April and searched 4,500,000 square kilometres (1,700,000 sq mi) of ocean. On 24 March 2014, Malaysia's Prime Minister announced that Flight 370 ended in the southern Indian Ocean with no survivors. In early April, an effort to find the signals emitted from underwater locator beacons (ULBs) attached to the aircraft's flight recorders, which have a 30- to 40-day battery life, was made. Some possible ULB detections were made and a seafloor sonar survey in the vicinity of the detections to scan the seafloor was initiated. The seafloor sonar survey ended on 28 May and scanned 860 km2 (330 sq mi) of seafloor. Neither the surface search nor the seafloor sonar survey found any objects related to Flight MH-370 In May 2014, planning for the next phase of the search was initiated. A bathymetric survey was carried out to measure the seafloor topography in the areas where the next phase was conducted; the survey charted 208,000 km2 (80,000 sq mi) of seafloor topography and continued until December that year. An underwater search began in October 2014 but failed to recover anything of value and was suspended in January 2017 after searching 120,000 km2 (46,000 sq mi) of the southern Indian Ocean. On 29 July 2015, a flaperon from Flight 370 was discovered on a beach in Réunion, approximately 4,000 km (2,500 mi) west of the underwater search area; this location is consistent with drift from the underwater search area over the intervening 16 months.
Before the 1921 destruction of Tulsa’s Greenwood District, Black residents had created a remarkable center of business and community life. The district included stores, professional offices, entertainment venues and homes owned by Black citizens. Understanding Greenwood means learning what was built—not only what was burned.
MORE →Brown v. Board of Education in 1954.
