Airfoil Rudder Tail 
Pilot Institute
JUNE 4, 2025
Have you ever seen an airplane with no tail and no vertical fin, but with just a sleek wing? They prove that with the right aerodynamic tricks, you dont need a tail to fly. A tailless aircraft may still have a fuselage and a vertical tail (fin and rudder). How does the tail do this? Lets find out.
Vintage Aviation News
APRIL 1, 2025
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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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.
Vintage Aviation News
OCTOBER 18, 2024
What you do is you sit up high for takeoff and as you add power and the tail comes up almost immediately, very quickly. “I started to make a normal landing, but as I was getting ready to touch down, I pulled the power off and the tail just fell out from underneath me,” he said. The landings are a little tricky, if you will.
Pilot's Life Blog
FEBRUARY 11, 2025
The wings are designed with an airfoil shape, curved on the top and flatter on the bottom, creating a pressure difference when air flows over them. Each rotor blade acts as an airfoil, and as it rotates, it moves air over its surface, generating lift. This pressure difference produces lift, allowing the aircraft to ascend.
Pilot Institute
APRIL 12, 2025
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. Other Designs The tail rotor is not the only way to solve the torque reaction problem.
Vintage Aviation News
JANUARY 22, 2025
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. But the most radical feature of the Pigeon-Fraser was Albree’s all-moving tail design. 9” on its rudder.
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