Tailplane

A tailplane is a small lifting surface located behind the main lifting surfaces of a fixed-wing aircraft. It serves three purposes:

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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.

Lifting: Lifting may refer to:...

Fixed-wing aircraft: Fixed-wing aircraft is a term used to refer to what are more commonly known as aeroplanes in Commonwealth English (excluding Canada) or airplanes in North American English. This term can refer to a large range of craft designed for many purposes, ranging from large commercial aircraft, known as airl...

Force: In physics, a force is an external cause responsible for any change of a physical system. For instance, a person holding a dog by a rope is experiencing the force applied by the rope on his hand, and the cause for its pulling forward is the force exercised by the rope. The kinetic expression of th...