Plane and Pilot

FEBRUARY 26, 2025

Flight controls mean ailerons, elevator, and rudder, of course, but on some airplanes, if the trim is mis-set, the plane might be difficult or impossible to control. In that configuration, it didnt depart the airplane but, instead, blocked airflow to the tail, with fatal results. But there are variations from plane to plane.

Airplanes

Pilot Institute

JULY 11, 2025

The problem is that the tail itself might be in trouble. They couldn’t pull out because the tail wasn’t generating enough force in the high Mach regime. It’s not just the tail that experiences control issues. Ailerons can suffer from a phenomenon called “aileron buzz” or control reversal at high Mach.

True Airspeed

Vintage Aviation News

APRIL 18, 2025

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. This photo shows NASA’s F-14 (NASA tail number 991; Navy serial number 157991) flying over Rogers Dry Lake, accompanied by a Navy F-14.

Horizontal Stabilizer

Vintage Aviation News

MAY 20, 2025

On the landing approach, Saari, tightened the strap on his goggles, opened the cockpit, and stuck his head into the slipstream to see the runway, setting the Thunderbolt down safely and rolling to a stop. Army Air Corps fighter with all-metal construction, retractable landing gear and an enclosed cockpit. The Spitfire Mk.

Tail

Pilot's Life Blog

JANUARY 12, 2025

Aircraft Controls: Primary ControlsAilerons, Elevators, Rudder The three primary flight controls ailerons , elevators, and rudderare essential for piloting an aircraft. Ailerons, located on the wings, control the plane’s roll. Elevators, found on the tail, manage its pitch, or up-and-down motion.

Aileron

WayMan

MAY 25, 2025

These include: Fuselage Wings Cockpit Engine Propeller (in some aircraft) Tail Assembly (Empennage) Landing Gear Understanding how these parts interact is essential to grasping the basics of aerodynamicsand its one of the first steps in becoming a safe and informed pilot.

Lift

Vintage Aviation News

APRIL 25, 2025

Because the aircraft would be hanging from the structure of the Transportation Gallerys balcony, the left wing was removed from the aircraft, with only the right wing brought inside for reattachment, along with the tail stabilizers and the engines. On the nose of the cockpit section, the aircraft also bears the name of Captain William R.

Cockpit

Flying Magazine

JULY 17, 2025

Hangar kept for the last 20 years under single-family ownership, the straight-tail airframe sports a striking red, white, and blue paint scheme that pairs perfectly with its Horton STOL kit. The aircraft sports a King CDI with glideslope receiver as well as a King KT-76A transponder and uAvionix tail beacon ADS-B transmitter.

Transponder

Plane and Pilot

JULY 22, 2025

I asked as I scoured the cockpit. Both cockpits are roomy, and comfortable. Both cockpits are roomy, and comfortable. It was a far cry from the sharp and snappier aileron movements I was used to. The forward cockpit can fit two people. Before I knew it, the tail was ready to come up, so I pushed the stick forward.

Runway

Vintage Aviation News

OCTOBER 30, 2024

He replaced the two-cylinder, horizontally opposed Detroit Aero 25hp engine with a three-cylinder Szekely SR-3 45-hp radial engine, and in 1935, he changed out the wooden fuselage frame for a tubular steel one, and removed the pulleys and cables for wing warping and added ailerons to the wings.

Airplanes

Vintage Aviation News

FEBRUARY 9, 2025

The pilots of both the RNAS and the RFC loved the performance of their Pups for its light weight, good climb rate, and excellent agility (owing largely to its low wing loading and in having ailerons on both sets of its wings).

Flight Deck

Vintage Aviation News

NOVEMBER 19, 2024

The Libeccio was of mixed construction, featuring a metal monocoque cockpit section attached to a welded steel tube fuselage frame covered in doped fabric, with wooden bars and panels on its top and bottom. 310 which featured a “stepless” plexiglass cockpit and two 700 hp Piaggio Stella P.XVI RC-35 radial engines.

Aileron

Vintage Aviation News

JULY 16, 2025

View of the Curtiss JN-4D Jenny s/n 1382 from the tail while on display at the Western Antique Aeroplane and Automobile Museum. The ailerons were originally controlled by a shoulder yoke (with the pilot leaning left and right) in the aft cockpit, but were replaced by a wheel, stick, or yoke by this D model.

Cockpit

AV Web

APRIL 15, 2025

It had cut into the tail rotor gearbox, tearing it off the helicopter. Inconvenienced but unstoppable, the airplanes right wing and aileron were substantially damaged, though the damage did not prohibit the airplane from being able to fly, despite the airplane feeling out of trim and a little heavier on one side. No doors, no problem.

Pilot

Vintage Aviation News

OCTOBER 18, 2024

Although it is sort of heavy on the ailerons,” Storo said. “Sitting so high up and trying to look down inside the cockpit for the airspeed is nearly impossible. What you do is you sit up high for takeoff and as you add power and the tail comes up almost immediately, very quickly.

Crosswind

Pilot's Life Blog

MARCH 15, 2024

Most Crucial Aircraft Components, From the Flight Crew to the Cockpit, Are in the Fuselage The body of an airplane is known as the fuselage. Pilots navigate the airplane forward in glass cockpits, which are located just over the aircraft’s nose. This long, metal tube connects all the main components of an airplane.

Horizontal Stabilizer

Vintage Aviation News

MAY 6, 2024

In this new guise, with its cockpit pushed four feet further aft, N5111N was designated as a Boeing Model 299Z. Brooks had long wished to own an airworthy Flying Fortress as his father, Elton Brooks, had flown 35 missions as a B-17 tail gunner with the 570th BS, 390th BG from RAF Framlingham in England.

Tail

Vintage Aviation News

FEBRUARY 19, 2025

Wright State University) The original configuration of the Bell Model 68 was an open cockpit all-metal monoplane with fixed landing gear that was powered by two Armstrong Siddeley Viper turbojet engines with thrust deflectors located at the aircraft’s center of gravity.

Thrust

Vintage Aviation News

FEBRUARY 25, 2025

James Kightly] The cockpit of the last Blriot built, constructed by the craftsmen of the Blriot factory in 1921 and gifted to Louis. On the early Bristol Biplanes (Boxkites) the ailerons were called ‘balancers.’ Richard Shuttleworth obtained it in 1935 as his first historic airplane.

Weight-Shift-Control

Pilot Institute

NOVEMBER 1, 2024

Remember that wings, propeller blades, and tail surfaces are airfoil-shaped. 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. Many aircraft have heated leading edges on the wings, tail, and propellers.

Pitot Tube

Air

MAY 21, 2025

Pilots must use specific techniques, applying rudder and aileron inputs, to maintain directional control and keep the aircraft aligned. Headwind component (Vf), either on the face or tail, is calculated with the cosine function. This is a handy in-cockpit estimation technique. – A negative value indicates tailwind.

Crosswind

Aerotime

JULY 19, 2024

The aircraft was powered by three General Electric CF6 turbofan engines, with one mounted under each wing and a third located above the rear fuselage in the base of the tail. On scanning the engine instruments, it quickly became apparent that the number two tail-mounted engine had failed. I had the world ahead of me.

Runway

Vintage Aviation News

NOVEMBER 22, 2024

This under-mounted tail design was chosen to enhance the gunner’s field of fire and echoed elements seen in earlier seaplanes, such as the German Hansa-Brandenburg models. Both the upper and lower wings included ailerons, maximizing maneuverability. Toward the rear, the fuselage depth tapered as the lower longerons curved upward.

Stability

Air Facts

OCTOBER 7, 2024

It was a beefed up, militarized version of the Beechcraft Bonanza with a narrowed fuselage and conventional tail, seating two pilots in tandem cockpits with controls and indicators configured similarly to tactical aircraft of the period. We could practice in a cockpit procedures trainer next to the briefing area.

Cockpit

Vintage Aviation News

APRIL 26, 2024

Photo copyright Russell Munson] On April 26th, 1964 a radial-powered biplane with wings and tail in Champion Yellow and Stearman Vermillion-painted fuselage took off from an airfield near Lumberton, NC. “The steel fuselage frame, tail surfaces, and landing gear have been repaired as needed, media blasted, and primed.

Airplanes

Plane and Pilot

SEPTEMBER 23, 2024

With its unique forward-tail design, retractable landing gear, and classic lines, it began the design philosophy for the over 11,000 Mooneys to follow. The wing featured a laminar flow design extending to the end of its generous flaps then a more conventional design forward of the ailerons.

Tail

Flying Magazine

MAY 6, 2024

I’ve seen a single person lift a Tiger Moth by the tail to take it out of its hangar. One of the major changes introduced to the Tiger Moth, at RAF insistence, was folding door panels that made it easier to enter and exit both cockpits. However, the trickiest part of takeoff for most tailwheel airplanes is still when the tail comes up.

Airplanes

Vintage Aviation News

APRIL 29, 2024

He reported back that both ailerons were in the full-up position. He went to the back of the aircraft, and as I was about ready to give the signal to jump, he wandered back to the cockpit looking for his tack vest. It was my co-pilot back in the cockpit again. We couldn’t land there, but it would be a safe area to bail.

Cargo

Plane and Pilot

SEPTEMBER 8, 2024

The ailerons, elevators, and rudder featured fabric covering stretched over lightweight aluminum frames. The Executive’s futuristic aerodynamic lines, rivaled only by the contemporary 1937 Harlow PJC-2 monoplane, were accentuated by its polished fuselage, wings, and tail. Then there was the Spartan’s ramp appeal.

Rudder

Plane and Pilot

OCTOBER 3, 2024

True, a slightly higher aspect ratio wing was desired, which in turn required a larger vertical tail and thus a little extra mass, but the size, approximately 20% larger than a Widgeon, was set. The Mallard—it’s a trike—has a tail stinger because it otherwise falls on its tail when loading.”

Airplanes

Plane and Pilot

DECEMBER 16, 2024

Planespotters note the F2’s separate ailerons and flaps, conventional tail. But you can see the change to separate ailerons and flaps is just one part of preparing the F2 to grow into a four-place airplanebuying aerodynamic benefits now to spend later on a heavier, more powerful model. Well see about that.

Rudder

Vintage Aviation News

MAY 2, 2025

(image via AirCorps Aviation) The instrument panel mounts within the black painted bulkhead assembly in this image looking forwards from the cockpit. The two leading off to the lower right are for the cockpit hand pump. image via AirCorps Aviation) This bracket holds the handheld signal lamp on the rear, lefthand side of the cockpit.

Rudder