? on ANHEDRAL, DIHEDRAL, & conventional STABILIZERS usage.

Question

? on ANHEDRAL, DIHEDRAL, & conventional STABILIZERS usage.

88SST56 (Marine/Ocean)

(OP)

3 Oct 03 11:49

What are the determining factor that a designer uses to determine which tail configuration they use. I understand the reasons for the "T-tail configuration" when used with rear engined aircraft. Some examples of the different configurations in use are:

The Dassault FALCON 50, 90, 900, 2000 and FX all utilize the middle span ANHEDRAL style stabilizer, the FALCON 20, however, uses the slightly DIHEDRAL mid-span stabilizer. CITATION II, V, 500, and 550's all use a DIHEDRAL configuration. LEARJETS use the T-tail configuration exclusively, the HAWKER-SIDDELY 125 use a T-tail configurtion, and the anachronistic WESTWIND uses what looks like, a low conventional stabilizer. Any explaination on the positive and negatives of each configurations would be great. Thanks everyone.

corgum (Aeronautics) · Answer 1 · 2003-10-03 17:54:54

A full answer is long and involved. It may help to shorten the answer if you would say why are you asking.

88SST56 (Marine/Ocean) · Answer 2 · 2003-10-06 10:44:43

No specific reasons really, I just want to know if there is a criteria that dictates a particular choice. Any links to books that could provide in-depth explanations would be great as well. Thanks

Miper (Aeronautics) · Answer 3 · 2003-10-09 03:48:26

Usually the boss likes one configuration or another. The design always starts there. I remember a light twin design where the President of the company wanted the tail to look like the tail on the F-5. We just about never got that to work right.

The tail's vertical placement is a tradeoff between aesthetics, tail arm, and desired distance from the propwash or jet engine exhaust.

T-tails sometimes have anhedral because that was an early solution to dynamic cross-coupling in flutter problems. T-tails don’t seem to always have anhedral anymore.

Other than that, dihedral or anhedral is usually added to a tail after wind tunnel tests in order to tailor the roll/yaw characteristics of the airplane.

88SST56 (Marine/Ocean) · Answer 4 · 2003-10-09 09:52:06

Thanks Miper, that makes sense to me now. I appreciate your reply.

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? on ANHEDRAL, DIHEDRAL, & conventional STABILIZERS usage.