Talk:T-tail

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Difficulty of spin recovery?

According to NASA Technical Paper 1009 - Spin-Tunnel Investigation of the Spinning Characteristics of Typical Single-Engine General Aviation Airplane Designs, T-tails and, to a lesser extent, cruciform tails, have better spin recovery characteristics than conventional tails. What gives? Johnnie Rico (talk) 21:40, 22 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I expect that the crux is in the generalization of all T-tails into a group and implying that the spin and recovery characteristics are driven by that particular property. Spin and recovery characteristics are driven by many properties like mass distribution, CG location, size of control surfaces, power on/off, vortex shedding off pointy noses, etc. The list goes on and on. I would be surprised if the paper you cite really said that in quite the way you paraphrase it.

It's also not a simple one dimensional matter of "goodness or badness" of "stall and spin" characteristics. I took a quick look at the paper and I noticed in the conclusion a reference to the benefits on yaw damping of having more vertical tail exposed by a T-tail. At the same time, the presumed negative effects on high-AOA pitch-up would also (I expect) come into play. So, "good for yaw damping", "bad for High-AOA pitch characteristics". I think it's a matter of muddling too many different things together! :-)

108.7.8.102 (talk) 19:11, 20 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]