Elevon / V-Tail Mixing

Here's what an Elevon or V-Tail/ mixer does.  You can do it with your radio if it has that feature, or with an electronic hardware mixer.  Here's the HobbyKing Mixer in action:

If you're hardcore old school, you can do pure hardware mixing with this Dubro V-Tail kit ("23 piece kit").  NightFlyyer has a nice video (where??) showing one of his classic planes with hardware mixing.

Elevon Action

The elevator control will move both elevons equally up or down.  When the aileron control is centered, pull the elevator back, then push it forwards.  You will see the elevons go up, then down.  The plane will be level across the wings, and pitch up and down.

The aileron control will move the elevons in the opposite direction.  With the elevator centered, move the aileron control left, then right.  When the stick is to the left, you will see the left elevon move up and the right elevon move down.  When the stick is to the right, the left elevon will be down and the right elevon will be up.  The plane will be level, rolling left and right.

When both the elevator and aileron move, the elevons combine the motion of the two.  For example, pull the aileron left; you will see the left/right elevons move up/down.  Keeping the aileron left, pull the elevator back.  Both elevons will move up the same amount, keeping the deflection set by the aileron.

Motion Rules:

• elevator back: elevons up
• elevator forward: elevons down
• aileron left: left elevon up, right elevon down
• aileron right: right elevon up, left elevon down

Elevon Equivalence

The same calculations for translating aileron/elevator to elevon wing surfaces will translate joystick controls to tank-style left/right wheel/tread motion.

Calculating Elevon Motion

update: I moved this to its own post, here.