From hrose-saa@ckdhr.com Mon Apr 9 15:37:03 1901 Path: bounce-back Newsgroups: sci.aeronautics.airliners Date: 09 Apr 2001 15:37:03 From: gbeaman@pei.sympatico.ca (Gord Beaman) Subject: Re: Wing vs. tail-mounted engines? References: Message-ID: Approved: hrose-saa@ckdhr.com@ditka.Chicago.COM Sender: hrose-saa@ckdhr.com@ditka.Chicago.COM X-Trace: sapphire.mtt.net 986518868 142.176.117.32 (Thu, 05 Apr 2001 22:01:08 ADT) X-Newsreader: Forte Free Agent 1.21/32.243 Organization: ISLAND TEL Reply-To: ve1eo@rac.ca NNTP-Posting-Host: 142.176.117.32 R J Carpenter wrote: --cut-- > >Am I naive in thinking that a "flying" tail could support the rear >engines without any of their weight being supported by the wings??? Yes, I'm afraid so, -all- of any a/c's weight is supported by the wings (or canards), none is supported by the tail surfaces at all. They're there -only- to control (along with the ailerons) the a/c in flight. As a matter of fact, in normal flight, the horizontal tail surfaces actually have a net downward force which is used in the 'vertical stability department'. >The first rear-engined jet, the Caravelle, didn't have a true T-tail. >The horizontal tail surface was still fairly low on the fin. The reason for the T tail config is to get the horizontal stab. up out of the turbulance of the rear mounted engines. When in a very nose high position the a/c can get into what's known as a 'deep stall' where the elevators are in such turbulent air from the engines that you cannot get the nose down...this apparently happened to a Trident (?) in the UK many years ago.