Cruciform tail

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BAe Jetstream 31 with cruciform tail

The cruciform tail is an aircraft empennage configuration which, when viewed from the aircraft's front or rear, looks much like a cross. The usual arrangement is to have the horizontal stabilizer intersect the vertical tail somewhere near the middle, and above the top of the fuselage.^[1]

Often this arrangement is chosen to keep the tail out of the engines' wake or to avoid complex interference drag.

The empennage of the Dornier Do 335, on which the horizontal stabilizers emerged from the fuselage between an upper and lower vertical fin, is also described as cruciform.^{[citation needed]}

Benefits

The cruciform tail gives the benefit of clearing the aerodynamics of the tail away from the wake of the engine, whilst not requiring the same amount of strengthening of the vertical tail section in comparison with a T-tail design.

Applications

Avro Canada CF-100 showing its cruciform design tail.

• Gloster Meteor - a World War II era jet.
• A-4 Skyhawk
• Avro Canada CF-100
• F-84 Thunderjet
• F-84F Thunderstreak
• Fairchild Swearingen Metroliner
• Jetstream 31
• Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15
• PBY Catalina
• Rockwell Commander 112
• Sud Aviation Caravelle

See also

• Pelikan tail
• T-tail
• Twin tail
• V-tail

References

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