1. What are flaperons ?

2. What part of Rc flying do they come into play ?

3. Is there any situations when using them is particularly/highly recommended ?

4. Do people use it regularly ?

All I know is that Flaperons are controls that can act as flaps or ailerons. I am trying to get this to work on the cub that I am building......

As rightly mentioned by Pankaj...flaperons are flaps+ailerons. Well you must be aware of ailerons so i am going to skip to flaps. Flaps are special high lift devices (others being slats,slots etc) which are used to create high lift at slow speeds especially during landing by changing the apparent angle of attack (adding a camber). Next time you fly..take a seat next to the wing and see the flaps being deployed  at landings or during turbulence. I once observed full 30 degrees of flaps deployed on one flight ..boy was i excited to see them ..you could actaully see the internal pneumatics of the wing then.

I am not sure if flaperons are used in real aircrafts..never seen them..they have seperate flaps and ailerons. I think to save weight and servo costs they are clubbed together in rc world.

They are highly recommended for dead slow landings in probably trainer so that landings can be easy...but you need an extra servo and channel to operate them...so i think its a personal choice.

Quote from: ankurkaul17 on October 11, 2009, 02:49:58 AM
but you need an extra servo and channel to operate them...so i think its a personal choice.

No extra servo needed for flaperons; it is needed for regular flaps, right ?

Question is does anyone here use flaperons frequently.

Well if you use 1 servo to control your ailerons...that way when 1 aileron goes up the other automatically goes down...but in case you have flaperons...and you want to use them as flaps both have to go down.which is not possible with a single servo...so a second servo is used..thus 2 servos are used to individually control the two control surfaces..both as flaps and ailerons.

well i can speak for myself...i have never used a flaperon.

flaperons are very very effective in rc planes i usually use them in my every plane where its possible they actually increase wing area thus increasing lift i had taken a video of the boeing 747-800 fullflaps down it was tremendous also they have something called fronterons which assist the flaps while take off and landing.
in your trainer just hook up 2 servos for each aileron and in your tx u should havean option called FLAPE 

Quote from: ankurkaul17 on October 11, 2009, 03:48:59 AM
Well if you use 1 servo to control your ailerons...that way when 1 aileron goes up the other automatically goes down...but in case you have flaperons...and you want to use them as flaps both have to go down.which is not possible with a single servo...so a second servo is used..thus 2 servos are used to individually control the two control surfaces..both as flaps and ailerons.

well i can speak for myself...i have never used a flaperon.

I still think what you are describing is "flaps", not "flaperons".  Flaperons is when the aileron control surface itself is used as flaps also, in addition to being ailerons, by using the flaperon feature on the radio to do the mixing.  So no separate control surface is added, and no separate servo is added.  With "flaperons", while coming in to land, you enable flaperons, and both ailerons go down a bit to act like flaps.  But if you apply any aileron stick input, they will also move like ordinary ailerons from the existing position (which is both down); and one will go up and the other will go down.  But now their displacement will be unequal from the center, as compared to plain ailerons.

Well anwar

I think there is some confusion in your mind...let me explain. Normally we have ailerons as the control surfaces on both wings which are controlled by a single servo...see the pic below..in such type of connection the two control horns..one on each wing aileron is connected to the servo horn on the single wing servo..on diametrically opposite holes..thus when the servo moves one side..it pushes one of the control horn while the other control horn is being pulled..thus achieving the desired effect of raising one aileron and simultaneously lowering the other. It is impossible in this connection to use the ailerons as flaps as both the aileron cannot go down simultaneously.

So what we do is use another servo so that each aileron is controlled exclusively by a single servo..here we need the flaperons mixing option...which electronically binds the two servos...such that the flap switch is activated both the the ailerons come down...and wen you give aileron input..one goes up and the other goes down..see pics below.

If you still don't believe me ..have a look here
http://www.airfieldmodels.com/information_source/math_and_science_of_model_aircraft/rc_aircraft_design/flaperons_on_model_aircraft.htm

Ah..  you are talking about a Y-cable aileron setup with a single servo for both ailerons, and I am talking about each aileron driven by a separate servo.  For a moment I thought you were talking about adding a one more servo on each side to the existing "one servo per aileron" setup. So we are clear now