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. By this time, the group had adopted a red-and-white striped tail and other bold markings to discourage friendly fire.

Tail

Plane and Pilot

MAY 3, 2025

Depressions in the vertical stabilizer and rudder, as well as stabilator skins and ailerons, all help increase panel stiffness while allowing less under-skin structure. At least the Cherokee gave the pilot a better view of the runway from the patternno wing in the wayand lacked the high-wing Cessnas pitch change with flap deployment.

Approach

Plane and Pilot

JULY 22, 2025

Well, it was a combination of just doing it and learning to use my peripheral vision to judge my relative location on the runway and height above the ground,” I replied. It was a far cry from the sharp and snappier aileron movements I was used to. Just keep it in the center of the runway.” asked Finkbeiner. Thanks,” I replied.

Runway

Vintage Aviation News

APRIL 25, 2025

Landing the 727 at Meigs Field would be a challenge, as the runway there was just 3,900-feet (1,200 m), but the airline had a capable crew to take N7017U on its final flight, with Captain B.C. After a low pass for the public and the press that had gathered to watch, Captain Thomas made the approach on runway 36 north.

Cockpit

Pilot Institute

APRIL 12, 2025

Helicopters use a small rotor mounted on the tail that produces sideways thrust to counter the main rotors torque reaction. The tail rotor pushes air to one side ( action ), and the tail moves the other way ( reaction ). Other Designs The tail rotor is not the only way to solve the torque reaction problem.

Torque

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. Its also the anchor point to which the wings and tail are attached.

Lift

Flying Magazine

JULY 22, 2025

The deicing boots seem to mate so smoothly with the wings and tail that the only way to tell where that happens is that they are different colors. READ MORE: We Fly: Skyryse One In the event of engine failure, Smart Glide picks the optimum airport for conditions, holds best glide speed, and brings the airplane overhead.

Rudder

AV Web

APRIL 15, 2025

Student pilots get a free pass, because theyre adorable skittering off runways in Loss of Directional Control (LODC) events that vex the best among us. It had cut into the tail rotor gearbox, tearing it off the helicopter. The pilot observed the wire wrapped around the helicopter. Tip: Bounce once, you might salvage the landing.

Pilot

Vintage Aviation News

OCTOBER 18, 2024

Although it is sort of heavy on the ailerons,” Storo said. What you do is you sit up high for takeoff and as you add power and the tail comes up almost immediately, very quickly. At that point, you’re simply looking down the runway, and then it lifts off. “The first flight was kind of interesting.

Crosswind

Photographic Logbook

MAY 19, 2025

Don walked me through engine start and within minutes of bringing the fuel-injected 180 horsepower Lycoming to life, we were taxiing from the 700 Ramp to the departure end of runway 25. I accomplished the landing with a mild bounce and a slight deviation toward the downwind side of the runway. He was right. That felt incredibly wrong.

Rudder

Pilot's Life Blog

FEBRUARY 11, 2025

Control Mechanisms Airplane Controls In airplanes, pilots manage flight using three primary controls: the ailerons, elevator, and rudder. Ailerons, located on the wings, control roll by increasing lift on one wing while decreasing it on the other, allowing the aircraft to bank left or right.

Torque

Northstar VFR

JULY 21, 2024

As air flows over it, a force like lift results, and the tail is pulled in the opposite direction of the deflection. But instead of an upward force of lift on a wing, it’s a horizontal force pushing the tail of the plane causing the nose of the plane to move left and right. Now we’ve rotated and in the air.

Rudder

Air

MAY 21, 2025

Drawbacks: For takeoff, a tailwind significantly increases the required runway length and results in a shallower climb angle. Effects: It will try to push your aeroplane sideways off the runway centreline. Youll need the wind velocity (speed, Vw) and the angular difference () between your runway/track and the wind direction.

Crosswind

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

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.

Runway

Pilot Institute

APRIL 5, 2024

When the wind is blowing across the runway instead of along it, things get more challenging. However, the wind rarely aligns perfectly with the runway. Touching down with the aircraft’s longitudinal axis aligned with the runway. If the pilot makes no corrections, the aircraft gets blown off the runway centerline.

Crosswind

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. Dropping like an inverted dart tail first, Morris, from his aft cockpit perch exclaimed,“Wheeeee!”

Cockpit

Vintage Aviation News

OCTOBER 16, 2024

The tail turret evolved into a powered version, incorporating four Browning machine guns. Sunderland Mark II, showing ASV Mark II “stickleback” antennas in front of the tail. It carried four Browning machine guns in a powered tail turret and additional guns in manually operated positions on either side of the fuselage.

Center of Gravity

Flying Magazine

MAY 6, 2025

That required the creation of a redesigned, shorter span aileron that resulted in a markedly increased roll rate. In an airplane with a great deal of adverse aileron yaw that challenges a pilot each time the airplane makes a turn? The tail comes off the ground to a tail-low position and the airplane flies off at about 45 knots.

Gross Weight

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

Photographic Logbook

SEPTEMBER 22, 2024

Naming it Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome (ORA), Palen built a turf runway and got those old airplanes flying again. Unfortunately, that airshow was cut short by a landing accident ending with a bruised pilot and a Fleet Model 1 biplane on its back in the middle of ORA's turf runway. Over time, he built an extensive flying menagerie.

Airplanes