The Short Stirling was a British four-engined heavy bomber of the Second World War. It has the distinction of being the first four-engined bomber to be introduced into service with the Royal Air Force (RAF).
The Avro Lancaster is a British Second World War heavy bomber. It was designed and manufactured by Avro as a contemporary of the Handley Page Halifax, both bombers having been developed to the same specification, as well as the Short Stirling, all three aircraft being four-engined heavy bombers adopted by the Royal Air Force (RAF) during the same wartime era.
A T-tail is an empennage configuration in which the tailplane is mounted to the top of the fin. The arrangement looks like the capital letter T, hence the name. The T-tail differs from the standard configuration in which the tailplane is mounted to the fuselage at the base of the fin.
Heavy bombers are bomber aircraft capable of delivering the largest payload of air-to-ground weaponry and longest range of their era. Archetypal heavy bombers have therefore usually been among the largest and most powerful military aircraft at any point in time. In the second half of the 20th century, heavy bombers were largely superseded by strategic bombers, which were often smaller in size, but had much longer ranges and were capable of delivering nuclear bombs.
The V-tail or Vee-tail of an aircraft is an unconventional arrangement of the tail control surfaces that replaces the traditional fin and horizontal surfaces with two surfaces set in a V-shaped configuration. It is not widely used in aircraft design. The aft edge of each twin surface is a hinged control surface called a ruddervator, which combines the functions of both a rudder and elevator.
The Avro 679 Manchester was a British twin-engine heavy bomber developed and manufactured by the Avro aircraft company in the United Kingdom. While not being built in great numbers, it was the forerunner of the famed and vastly more successful four-engined Avro Lancaster, which was one of the most capable strategic bombers of the Second World War.
The Handley Page Halifax is a British Royal Air Force (RAF) four-engined heavy bomber of the Second World War. It was developed by Handley Page to the same specification as the contemporary twin-engine Avro Manchester.
The empennage, also known as the tail or tail assembly, is a structure at the rear of an aircraft that provides stability during flight, in a way similar to the feathers on an arrow. The term derives from the French language verb empenner which means "to feather an arrow". Most aircraft feature an empennage incorporating vertical and horizontal stabilising surfaces which stabilise the flight dynamics of yaw and pitch, as well as housing control surfaces.
A vertical stabilizer or tail fin is the static part of the vertical tail of an aircraft. The term is commonly applied to the assembly of both this fixed surface and one or more movable rudders hinged to it. Their role is to provide control, stability and trim in yaw. It is part of the aircraft empennage, specifically of its stabilizers.
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. The design is often used to locate the horizontal stabilizer away from jet exhaust, propeller and wing wake, as well as to provide undisturbed airflow to the rudder.
A tail gunner or rear gunner is a crewman on a military aircraft who functions as a gunner defending against enemy fighter or interceptor attacks from the rear, or "tail", of the plane.
An aircraft stabilizer is an aerodynamic surface, typically including one or more movable control surfaces, that provides longitudinal (pitch) and/or directional (yaw) stability and control. A stabilizer can feature a fixed or adjustable structure on which any movable control surfaces are hinged, or it can itself be a fully movable surface such as a stabilator. Depending on the context, "stabilizer" may sometimes describe only the front part of the overall surface.
A twin-boom aircraft is characterised by two longitudinal booms. The booms may contain ancillary items such as fuel tanks and/or provide a supporting structure for other items. Typically, twin tailbooms support the tail surfaces, although on some types such as the Rutan Model 72 Grizzly the booms run forward of the wing. The twin-boom configuration is distinct from twin-fuselage designs in that it retains a central fuselage.
The Nakajima G5N Shinzan was a four-engined long-range heavy bomber designed and built for the Imperial Japanese Navy prior to World War II. The Navy designation was "Experimental 13-Shi Attack Bomber"; the Allied code name was "Liz".
In aeronautics, a tailless aircraft is an aircraft with no other horizontal aerodynamic surface besides its main wing. It may still have a fuselage, vertical tail fin, and/or vertical rudder.
A nose gunner or front gunner is a crewman on a military aircraft who operates a machine gun or autocannon turret in the front, or "nose", of the airplane. This position could be manned by someone who was a dedicated gunner, however, it was more common for him to have a dual role, the gunnery being a secondary position. This is different from fixed guns mounted in the nose and fired by the pilot or co-pilot, since those do not require a nose gunner. Manned nose guns were most common during World War I and World War II, employed by both Allied and Axis forces. Early in WWI, nose-gunners enjoyed a period of popularity on pusher-engined fighters; a gunner would be stationed in the nose, covering the arc ahead of the aircraft. Once the synchronizer was invented, allowing a fixed machine gun to fire through the propeller, the pusher-engined fighter fell into disuse, although nose guns were still commonly seen on multi-engine bomber aircraft.
The Avro 529 was a twin-engined biplane long-range bomber of the First World War. Two prototypes were built but no production ensued.
The Bristol Berkeley was built to a British government specification for a single-engine day or night bomber. Three of these two-seat biplanes were built, but no contract for further production was awarded.
The Avro 528 was an unsuccessful large span single-engined biplane built to an Admiralty contract in 1916. It carried a crew of two; only one was built.
