To start, to get going.
I know this because I made my flight instructor look it up in the dictionary. Enough with the tricky new words! Every second word that comes out of anyone’s mouth over there at the flight school is some strange, new vocabulary I have no idea about; and the explanation inevitably involves another three new words!
I feel like an ESL student who looks and sounds like she speaks the language, but in truth, has no clue what people around her are talking about most of the time, lol!
So, when my teacher asked me to jiggle the actuating rod on the underside of the wing, where the aileron connects, to make sure it had some give, I demanded to know what an actuating rod was, exactly, and why it is called “actuating”. Turns out, this jiggley rod “motivates” the aileron to move (when “triggered” by a turn to the left or right of the control column in the cockpit, I assume).
And such is the role of the actuating rod, dear reader!
Now you know.