Designing Lift Surfaces: The Horizontal and Vertical Tails

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TAIL DESIGN
INTRODUCTION
The horizontal tail and vertical tail along with wing are referred to as the lifting surfaces. The major difference between wing design and tail design originates from the primary function of the tail which is different from the wing. The primary function of the wing is to generate the maximum or substantial amount of lift, while the tail is designed to operate normally at only a fraction of its ability to generate the required lift potential. During a flight mission, if at any moment the tail reaches its maximum angle of attack which refers to the tail stall angle; is an indication of design process error.[1][2]The tail in a conventional unmanned aerial vehicle often has two components, horizontal tail and vertical tail, and carries primary two functions:
Trim (longitudinal and directional)
Stability (longitudinal and directional)
Control (longitudinal and directional)
Trim is referred to the generation of a lift force which acts through the tail moment arm about the center of gravity, balancing some other moment produced by the aircraft. For the horizontal tail, trim primarily means the balancing of the moment generated by the wing. Hence, longitudinal trim is the first and primary function of a horizontal tail and is also referred to as the equilibrium or balance. An aft mounted horizontal tail has a negative incidence angle of about 2-3 degrees to balance the wing pitching moment.
The vertical tail is not required to generate longitudinal trim force because the aircraft is usually left-right symmetric i.e. an aircraft is symmetric about the XZ plane. Hence the primary function of vertical tail is directional stability.
The second function of the tail is to provide stability. Aircraft stability is d...

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...alance of moments of wing an tail is given by :
Mcgwing = Mcgtail or (Lwing * lwing) = (Ltail * ltail) or Ltail= ((Lwing*lwing))/ltail=(233*0.0625)/1.43=10.18N where, Lwing= lift produced by wing
Ltail= lift produced by tail lwing= moment arm of wing ltail= moment arm of tail
The horizontal tail lift = 10.18N
Note: The tail arm is considered 65% of the fuselage length. Usually, the tail arm is approximated by considering 65%-75% of the fuselage [1].
REFERENCES:
[1] “Airfoil and Geometry Selection”- Page 33-67-Aircraft Design: A conceptual approach by Daniel P Raymer- AIAA Education Series.
[2] “Wing and Tail Design”- Page Aircraft Design: A System Engineering Approach by Mohammad H Sadraey- Wiley Aerospace Series
[3] Shevell,R.S. (1989) Fundamentals of Flight, 2nd edition, Prentice Hall
[4] Nelson,R. (1997) Flight Stability and Automatic Control , McGraw Hill

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