Recently, Peter Dohm posted:

Oh, by the way, many aircraft do not have any trim tabs at all - most
gliders use springs in the control circuit, J-3 Cubs move the
horizontal stabilizer, the F-4 I used to fly changed the neutral
position of the whole flying tail, etc...

Thanks, presumably on behalf of many, for an excellent overview.

BTW, in the case of the fully trimming stab on the J-3 Cub, DC-9, and
some others; as well as the fully trimming tail of the F-4, Mooney
M20, and others; it does seem hypothetically possible that the
control authority could be influenced--but that would be a side
effect of obtaining a design goal, rather than a feature in itself,
and certainly outside of any area of expertise which I might have.

The question isn't whether the control surfaces would be closer to one
stop or another, it's whether you have still full control authority, a
concept that totally escapes Mxsmanic. What he fails to see is that you
don't need more "up" than it takes to get the plane into a stall or more
"down" than it takes to get the nose pointed at the Earth, and no amount
of trim will remove that control authority. If he was capable of
understanding that when trimmed fully "up", it takes much less "up" to go
past critical AOA than the elevator can still provide, or if trimmed fully
"down" the plane could still be taken into a dive that can exceed Vne, he
wouldn't persist with such nonsensical notions as this one that he's been
flagging around for months, now. Every pilot that has responded to him has
explained these facts to him, but he refuses to learn. Anything.

Neil