Editing Flap (aeronautics) (section)

=== Plain flap ===
The rear portion of airfoil rotates downwards on a simple hinge mounted at the front of the flap.<ref>Gunston 2004, p. 452.</ref> The [[Royal Aircraft Factory]] and [[National Physical Laboratory (United Kingdom)|National Physical Laboratory]] in the [[United Kingdom]] tested flaps in 1913 and 1914, but these were never installed in an actual aircraft.<ref name=Fairey>Taylor 1974, pp. 8–9.</ref> In 1916, the [[Fairey Aviation Company]] made a number of improvements to a [[Sopwith Baby]] they were rebuilding, including their Patent Camber Changing Gear, making the [[Fairey Hamble Baby]] as they renamed it, the first aircraft to fly with flaps.<ref name=Fairey /> These were full-span plain flaps which incorporated ailerons, making it also the first instance of flaperons.<ref name=Fairey /> Fairey were not alone however, as [[Breguet Aviation|Breguet]] soon incorporated automatic flaps into the lower wing of their [[Breguet 14]] reconnaissance/bomber in 1917.<ref>{{cite book|last=Toelle|first=Alan|title=Windsock Datafile Special, Breguet 14 | publisher = Albatros Productions|location=Hertfordshire, Great Britain|year=2003|isbn=978-1-902207-61-2}}</ref> Owing to the greater efficiency of other flap types, the plain flap is normally only used where simplicity is required. <!--A modern variation on the plain flap exploits the ability of composites to be designed to be rigid in one direction, while flexible in another. When such a material forms the skin of the wing, its camber can be altered by the geometry of the internal supporting structure, allowing such a surface to be used either as a flap or as an aileron. While most currently use a complex system of motors and actuators, the simplest such installation uses ribs that resemble bent carrots – when the bend is nearly horizontal, there is no deflection, but when the carrot is rotated so the bend is downward, the camber of the airfoil is changed in the same manner as on a plain flap.{{Citation needed|date=February 2013}}-->