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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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Flight Test Files: The Douglas D-558-2 Skyrocket – Chasing Mach 2

Vintage Aviation News

These stories shine a light on the aircraft and test pilots that pushed the limits of aeronautical knowledge, many of them flying out of the legendary Dryden Flight Research Center (now Armstrong Flight Research Center) at Edwards Air Force Base, California. Research pilot John McKay flew it once in this form on September 17, 1956.

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Flight Test Files: Convair XF-92A Dart

Vintage Aviation News

The delta wing’s large area (425 square feet), thin airfoil cross section, low weight, and structural strength made a great combination for a supersonic aircraft. The pilot also reported that the aircraft was sluggish and underpowered. feet high at the tip of the vertical stabilizer. feet long, had a 31.3-foot

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McChord Air Museum Restoring World War II TG-4 Glider

Vintage Aviation News

Assault gliders were of course used in Operations such as Husky, Overlord, Market Garden, and Varsity, and just like their piston engine counterparts, glider pilots had to learn somehow. It will be coupled with a wind tunnel and a few different types of airfoils to demonstrate the effect of airflow at different angles.

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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. Accommodations were for two pilots and a navigator, with the aircraft being instrumented for aeroelasticity studies. Pilots are Joe Walker on the viewer’s left and Stanley Butchart on the right. NASA Photo

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Mastering Stalls: How to Recognize, Prevent, and Recover Safely

Flight Training Central

Depending on design, airfoils used in general aviation, stall at angles of attack between 16 to 18 degrees. When the airplane is stabilized in the approach attitude and speed, begin to smoothly and slowly bring the nose up to an attitude which will cause a stall. As the airspeed slows into the white arc, extend the wing flaps.

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Today in Aviation History: First Flight of the Stipa-Caproni

Vintage Aviation News

During these years, he concluded that the inner surface of the venturi tube needed an airfoil shape to achieve the greatest efficiency. The duct, as predicted by Stipa, had a profile similar to that of the airfoil, with a fairly small rudder and elevators mounted on the trailing edge of the duct.

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