Who invented the tail of the airplane?

Question

In other words, the use of the tail to stabilize and control the airplane.

I could not find anything like a tail in the Wright brothers planes.

Answer 1

The first planes to have a rear tail were the Bleriot and Antionette planes built a few years after the Wright brother's planes.

And the Wright Flyer was very stallable. Unlike modern unstallable tail-first airplanes it had its centre of gravity too far aft. This resulted in pitch oscillations and unrecoverable stalls which happened when the first attempt was made to fly it.

Answer 2

What most people think of when you mention the “Tail” of the aircraft is actually two different parts – The rudder, which handles the left right turn of the aircraft or "yaw" and the elevator which controls the up and down direction of the aircraft or "pitch." On the Wright Flyer, these two control surfaces are separated. The elevator control is located on the front of the aircraft and the rudder is located on the back of the aircraft. The rudder in this case would still be the “Tail.” When you check out pictures of the Wright Flyer, you will see two large vertical lines behind the pilot. This is the tail.

Now, to throw a wrench into the works. The Northrop Flying Wing concept dates back to the 40’s and in some configurations, has no tail at all. However, this is a modification to the standard. Until then, all aircraft had a tail in one form or another even if the tail was in the front.

I hope this helps.

Answer 3

The Wright Brothers. The whole concept of the Emphange on an airframe has always been there whether it was stuck in front or on the rear. On a helicopter the tail rotor and fin basically serve the same basic concept.

Answer 4

Wright's flier had no tail, but the airplane made and flown by Weisskopf some years before(1901) had a tail. Also Lilientahl glider had a tail.

Answer 5

Before the Wright brothers, aviators knew they needed to control three axes: roll, pitch and yaw, so they tried a zillion variations to get control.

I think it was the French inventor Louis Bleriot who first put the rudder and elevator at the back end of the fuselage, and invented the general layout still in use today.

Answer 6

Pierre` Empannage, born 1882 in Bitche, France. The son of an unemployed architectual engineer, he dropped out of building design school at the age of 16, when he began chasing tail all over the French Riviera.
He was thrilled by the various types of tail that were available in that region, and spent many years in pursuit of the perfect tail design. While at first toying with the split-tail design, he finally settled on the more common type seen on most of today's aircraft designs.

Answer 7

The elements of the tail were on their plane, it is just that they put the elevator in the front of the plane.
The rudders were in the rear, where they still are on most modern aircraft.
By WW1, both the rudder and the elevator were in the rear as is usual on aircraft, so somebody
changed this in the few years between their first flight and WW1.

Answer 8

The Wright Brothers, actually. They just put it in front of the wing, that's all. Turns out, that's a better place for it; it makes the aircraft stall-proof. Guess they really knew what they were doing!