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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. A tailless airplane is one where everything needed to fly, like lift, control, and stability, is built into the main wing.

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

Pilot Institute

When you reach around 36,000 feet (11,000 m) near the tropopause, the temperature stabilizes at around -56.5 °C. Making the wing relatively flat on top with a blunter leading edge and more curvature on the bottom gives you a supercritical airfoil. As you go higher, the air usually gets colder. roughly) up to about Mach 5.0.

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Flight Test Files: Grumman F-14 Tomcat

Vintage Aviation News

The F-14s unique roll control setup, which relies on differential horizontal stabilizers and spoilers rather than traditional ailerons, provided effective control at various speeds but also introduced side forces that could contribute to spin entry. View of the cockpit of NASA’s F-14, tail number 991.

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Today in Aviation History: First Flight of the Bell P-63 Kingcobra

Vintage Aviation News

It featured a laminar flow airfoil, the Allison V-1710 was fitted with a second supercharger, a four-bladed propeller was installed, and the nose cowlings to access the airplane’s 37mm gun and two Browing M2.50 However, the US Army Air Force was still interested in an improved version of the P-39, and so a new design was drafted.

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Flight Test Files: B-47A Stratojet

Vintage Aviation News

Langley was particularly focused on structural loads, while Ames concentrated on dynamic stability. The door to the cockpit area is open, showing a view of the ladder that folds down to be used by the pilots to enter and leave the area. The B-47A represented a significant departure from earlier, more rigid aircraft designs.

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FAA Releases Powered-Lift Certification Guidance

Flying Magazine

For lift during horizontal flight, they use rigid airfoils such as wings. Another new provision creates stricter aeromechanical stability standards, requiring the elimination of ground and air resonance that can cause loss of control.

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What Is a Variable-Sweep Wing? How Swing Wings Work

Pilot Institute

You can adjust the wings using a manual control in the cockpit. The improved stability at high speeds also contributes to steady flight, and overall better performance. According to Robert Gregg, Boeing’s chief aerodynamicist , supercritical airfoils help delay shock waves by managing how pressure waves behave at high speeds.