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Tailless Aircraft: How Airplanes Fly Without a Tail

Pilot Institute

A tailless aircraft is a fixed-wing airplane without a horizontal stabilizing surface. With this type of aircraft, the functions of longitudinal stability and control are incorporated into the main wing. Directional (yawing) stability from the vertical stabilizer. This type of design is a reflex airfoil.

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Flight Test Files: Grumman F-14 Tomcat

Vintage Aviation News

Photo by NASA The impetus for the program came from issues the Navy had encountered with inadvertent spin entries, which were traced back to the aircrafts aileron rudder interconnect system. These glove modifications served to smooth the wing surface and alter the airfoil to achieve specific pressure distributions.

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Mach Number Explained: What It Is and Why Pilots Use It

Pilot Institute

Making the wing relatively flat on top with a blunter leading edge and more curvature on the bottom gives you a supercritical airfoil. The tailplane (horizontal stabilizer) at high Mach can also develop shocks or experience disturbed airflow from the wings. Even the wing cross-section can be designed to redirect shock waves.

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The Albree Pigeon-Fraser: The First American Fighter

Vintage Aviation News

The Pigeon-Fraser Model SG was powered by a single 100hp Gnme rotary engine, had a length of 24 feet with a wingspan of 37 feet, 11 inches, and its single-set of wings featured a flat-bottomed airfoil. Timson had designed nearly ten years prior.

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The Hazards of Aircraft Icing: Explained

Pilot Institute

Remember that wings, propeller blades, and tail surfaces are airfoil-shaped. Ice build-up on the airframe changes the airflow pattern around these airfoils. It most commonly forms on the leading edges of your aircraft, including the wings, tail, and horizontal stabilizer, as well as on the propeller blades and pitot tubes.

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We Fly: Aviat Husky

Flying Magazine

It retained the classic, high-lift Clark Y airfoil, but the span of its four-position semi-Fowler flap span was extended. That required the creation of a redesigned, shorter span aileron that resulted in a markedly increased roll rate. Slow flight requires good rudder work to handle adverse aileron yaw when rolling at all aggressively.

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Return to Form

Plane and Pilot

Planespotters note the F2’s separate ailerons and flaps, conventional tail. For one thing, the F2s fuselage hangs from a completely new wing with two distinct airfoil shapes. An obvious discontinuity leads to a thinner airfoil inboard. It seems likely the company will add significantly to the 234 Carbon Cubs already sold.