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A 'tailplane', also known as 'horizontal stabilizer', is a small lifting surface located behind the main lifting surfaces of a fixed-wing aircraft as well as other non-fixed wing aircraft such as helicopters and gyroplanes. However, not all fixed-wing aircraft have tailplanes, such as those configured with canards (where the "tail-plane" is located in front), flying-wing aircraft, where there is no tail, and v-tail aircraft where the fin/rudder and tail-plane are combined to form two diagonal surfaces in a V layout. The tailplane serves three purposes:

Contents

Equilibrium

Stability

Control

See also

Equilibrium

An aeroplane must be in balance longitudinally in order to fly. This means that the net effect of all the forces acting on the aeroplane produces no overall pitching moment about the centre of gravity. Without a tailplane there would be only one combination of speed and centre of gravity position for which this requirement was met. The tailplane provides a balancing force to maintain equilibrium for different speeds and centre of gravity positions. Because the tailplane is located some distance from the centre of gravity, even the small amount of lift it produces can generate a large pitching moment at the centre of gravity.

Stability

An aeroplane with a wing only is normally unstable in pitch (longitudinal stability). This means that any disturbance (such as a gust) which raises the nose produces a nose-up pitching moment which tends to raise the nose further. With the same disturbance, the presence of a tailplane produces a restoring nose-down pitching moment which counteracts the natural instability of the wing and make the aircraft longitudinally stable. A stable aeroplane can be flown "hands-off" and will maintain the same altitude and pitch attitude and keeps the balance of the plane

Control

A tailplane has a hinged flap called an elevator, which allows the pilot to control the amount of lift produced by the tailplane. This in turn causes a nose-up or nose-down pitching moment on the aircraft, which is used to control the aircraft in pitch. In supersonic flight, however, shockwaves generated by the tailplane render the elevator unusable (this was first discovered in the Bell X-1; fortunately, although the tailplane was conventional in design, Bell Aircraft Corporation had included an elevator trim device that could alter the angle of attack of the entire tailplane; this saved the program from a costly and time-consuming rebuild of the aircraft.
The origin of this device is controversial, as the British had disclosed all of their research regarding the Miles M.52 prototype on the promise that US information would be shared the other way. The US failed to disclose any information in return and completed the rocket-powered Bell X-1.
Supersonic aircraft now have all-moving tailplanes to counteract the Mach tuck when breaking the sound barrier and maintain maneuverability above the speed of sound. While technically called a stabilator, this configuration is often referred to as an "all-moving" or "all-flying" tailplane.

See also

★ T-tail