We know MB loves the Forrest service..... here's a good one for you

[Solus]

Hate to contradict you, but the only control surfaces I see are on the 3 pieces of the empennage. I do not see any control surfaces on the wings. I do see 2 "mounts" for lack of a better word on the left wing.

The image we are looking at is the same as in the upper left picture on the page you showed.

Look at a small plane.  there may be exposed control surface actuation levers where the hard points appear to be on this drone.  They work the elevators on the horizontal stabalizers, ailerons and flaps on each wing.

[GTnCFL]

Found an article about NFS using these in California.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=15563089

High-Tech Drone Joins Battle Against Calif. Flames
October 23, 2007

Fire crews battling the wildfires sweeping across Southern California have been joined by a new colleague: a pilotless plane based on military technology. Onboard infrared sensors will relay data about the fires, via satellite, to firefighters on the ground.

The drone is called the Ikhana, which means "intelligent" in the Native-American Choctaw language. It's 36 feet long and is controlled by technicians at Edwards Air Force Base in the Mojave Desert.

Thermal imaging isn't new — the technology has been around for some 30 years — but mounting the sensors on drones is a much more recent development. It was first used last year in California. This will be the drone's most important assignment to date.

The advantage of the drones is that they can stay airborne much longer than conventional aircraft — up to 20 hours, says Everett Hinkley, program leader with the U.S. Forest Service's Remote Sensing Applications Center in Salt Lake City. The Ikhana drone is a version of the Predator drones used by the U.S. military overseas, he says.

High-Tech Fire Fighting

The infrared sensors can penetrate smoke and relay crucial data about the fire — size, intensity and the direction it's moving — to firefighting crews on the ground. "They produce daily maps for the battle plan," says Everett.

"It's extremely useful information, and you can do this through the smoke, which is a big advantage," adds Compton Tucker, a senior Earth scientist with NASA.

Those involved in the fire sciences, as the field is known, distinguish between strategic and tactical information. Satellites provide broad-brush strategic information about the fires in a given area. But the satellites pass overhead only twice a day. That makes them of little value to firefighters battling fast-moving blazes, like those currently burning in Southern California. Airplanes, and now drones, provide much more useful, real-time information.

Other technological advances also help crews contain wild fires: C-130s, the military cargo plane, have been refitted with side-mounted water-cannons that shoot precise streams of flame retardant. A newly designed intake hose for helicopters can douse fires with 2,000 gallons of water slurped in 30 seconds from ponds, rivers and the ocean.

One of the more promising technologies, still in the research stage, is "fire-behavior modeling." The idea is to measure the "fuel content" of a forest — in other words, how much timber and brush is in the path of a fire — and then determine in which direction, and how quickly, it's likely to grow.

Fundamental Dangers Remain

Despite these advances, the basic strategy of fighting a wildfire has not changed in decades. Firefighters try to encircle the fire and cut it off from fuel sources — to starve the fire — while dousing it from the air with flame retardants. It is labor-intensive, exhausting and often dangerous work. Last year, five firefighters were killed battling a Southern California mountain fire.

"Fundamentally, the way we go about putting out fires is the same as it was 70 years ago," say Murry Taylor, a former firefighter and author of Jumping Fire. "Yes, we have better tools, the fire engines are bigger, the crews are better trained and the aircraft are more modern. But we're dealing with Mother Nature, and she dances a mean boogie."

Thermal imaging is helpful, says Taylor, but he doubts it will be of much use in battling the rapidly moving wildfires sweeping across Southern California now.

"It's valuable data where the weather is not too extreme, but when it gets into this situation now, it's worthless," he says. "In five minutes, the data won't be worth a damn."

[tombogan03884]

Hate to contradict you, but the only control surfaces I see are on the 3 pieces of the empennage. I do not see any control surfaces on the wings. I do see 2 "mounts" for lack of a better word on the left wing.

The image we are looking at is the same as in the upper left picture on the page you showed.

Path, if the plane didn't have ailerons on the wings it couldn't bank for turns.

[Pathfinder]

Path, if the plane didn't have ailerons on the wings it couldn't bank for turns.

Maybe. Hard to see with this photo.

ALL of the control surfaces (ailerons, "horizontal" and "vertical stabs) appear to be on the 3 pieces to the "tail". The wings on the NOAA/NASA/Forestry drone seem to be too narrow to have control surfaces (compare the wing chord with those of the tail pieces. Plus the actuator housing are different between what's on the wing and what's on the tail. Control surfaces would also show up on the right wing in this photo. I am not seeing them if they are there, yet I can clearly see the control surfaces on the empennage.

[Timothy]

Speak English fellas!

Throw in an abaft, starboard, halyard, mainsail, jib or some other nautical term so I can keep up!  Your draggin' me brain down into the bilges.

Avast ye scallywags, skim off another pint of rum for me mates or I be keelhauling you at daybreak!  AAARRRGGGHHHH!!!

[Sponsor]

[Solus]

Path, if the plane didn't have ailerons on the wings it couldn't bank for turns.

With the angled stabilizers in the rear, it might be able to bank with them as well as change approach angle.

In looking at the structures on the wing, I don't see the "tick" I see on the ones on the stabilizer, so maybe they aren't the activation mechanism.... thought it could be they aren't attached to the control surface so don't need to be "hinged".

[RTFM]

Wow look at the traction this thread has started - cool .

thought to my self this might be a dead end post - but have never seen anything like it so might as well share with my tin foil brigade Whom I truly like being with and part of.....

Cool, glad you all liked it.

Back to your regularly scheduled thread.

[GASPASSERDELUXE]

If you enlarge the photo you can make some trim tabs on the right wing that extend out to where the wing starts to bend up so the 3 pods seen under the left wing do cover up the control actuators for the tabs.

[jnevis]

Outboard of the weapons hardpoints are the aileron  actuators on a Predator/Reaper.  

Aircraft axis control:
ailerons- roll, wings up/down to turn
rudder (typically part of the vertical stabilizer)- yaw, turns the nose left/right
elevators (part of horiz stab, this one is the canted ones)- pitch, nose up/down
Most directional control surfaces can have a trim tab to adjust that axis in flight.  Pitch control is typical, as changes in power/speed could require trim changes.
 Beech Bonanzas have V tails that combine the elevator and rudder


flaps- sections of wings that deploy to lower landing speeds and increasing visibility of the pilot on approach by changing the shape (chord) of the wing; Reapers don't have them.  To maintain altitude while slowing a plane you have to raise the nose, deploying the flaps allows for slower speeds while keeping the nose lower, until you hit stall speed and the wing stops producing lift and you fall. (Been there, do that for fun!)
I really need to start flying again.