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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. Recovery is made by lowering the nose, simultaneously applying full power while maintaining directional control with coordinated use of aileron and rudder. The recovery procedure is the same as for all stalls.

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Tailless Aircraft: How Airplanes Fly Without a Tail

Pilot Institute

A tailless aircraft may still have a fuselage and a vertical tail (fin and rudder). Use of Reflex Airfoils Ever notice how many tailless aircraft have wings that curve at the trailing edge? This type of design is a reflex airfoil. The rudder allows you to make controlled yaw movements. How does it manage yaw control?

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

Vintage Aviation News

D-558-2 Skyrocket take off using JATO assist in 1949 NACA engineers improved the rockets performance by adding nozzle extensions to its combustion chambers, reducing exhaust interference with the rudders and increasing thrust at altitude. Both aircraft display early examples of swept-wing airfoils.

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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. It was controlled by a conventional rudder and full-span elevons that functioned as elevators and ailerons. The XF-92A was then used to test the delta-wing concept.

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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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The Role of Newton’s Third Law in Aviation

Pilot Institute

They are designed with a special shape called an airfoil, which encourages passing air to turn and deflect downward. This is why the typical airfoil shape has a curved top and a flat bottom, especially in slower-speed general aviation aircraft. Rudder The rudder is the panel on the vertical part of the aircrafts tail.

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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. 9” on its rudder. Timson had designed nearly ten years prior.