Summary: The effects of negative dihedral on lateral stability and control characteristics at high lift coefficients have been determined by flight tests of a model in the Langley free-flight tunnel. The geometric dihedral angle of the model wing was varied from 0° to -20° and the vertical-tail area, from 0 to 35 percent of the wing area. The model was flown with various combinations of dihedral angle and vertical-tail area at lift coefficients of 1.0, 1.4, and 1.8. As the effective dihedral was decreased from 0° to -15°, the model became increasingly difficult to fly. With an effective dihedral of -15° the flying characteristics were considered to be dangerous because, when there was only a slight lag in the application of corrective control following a disturbance, the unstable moments resulting from spiral instability became sufficiently large to overpower the moments of the controls so that return to straight flight was impossible. Inasmuch as full-scale airplanes because of their greater size will diverge at a slower rate than free-flight models, the amount of negative effective dihedral that would constitute a dangerous condition is expected to be greater for full-scale airplanes.

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Reproductions of reports, some declassified, of research done at Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory during World War II. The order of reports does not represent when they were chronologically issued. Reference to the original version of each report is included.