Why the T-Tail?

"Eric Greenwell" wrote in message
...
Doug Hoffman wrote:
In article ,
Marian Aldenhövel wrote:


Hi,

Thank you all, I have learned a lot. I have also come up
with two more things to consider, both rather minor I suspect:

- The control linkages are propably more complicated
in a T-Tail (con).
- With a T-Tail you can build the elevator in one piece so you
can rig and derig more easily (pro).

Now why are we not seeing more V-Tails? The main pro for T-Tails
seem to be:

- Good ground clearance
- Less drag
- Operates in clean undisturbed air

How does a V-Tail stand up against that?


The V-Tail setup is less likely to cause fuse damage in a ground loop.

Couldn't the T-tail designer just make the fuselage stronger? Or the
V-tail designer make the fuselage lighter to take more advantage of the
lower tail CG, so they both withstand a ground loop just as well?

Maybe JJ or some other glider repairer can tell us how tail booms
commonly fail - torsion or bending, and if there seems to be a
difference in types of failure between the tail types.

Lotsa Libelle booms have been broken, but then the shape may have something
to do with that, or just the sheer numbers of Libelles built skews the
sample.

Several PIK-20 tail booms have unzipped along the lower fuselage seam from
ground loops. No idea how that compares to those that actually broke the
boom. From what I've heard, once repaired, they don't unzip again.

What about those booms that break in two places? Peculiar to make, or type
of accident?

Frank Whiteley