Outboard tail

The outboard tail surfaces are positioned so that they interact constructively with the wingtip vortices to significantly reduce drag, without causing undue structural or handling difficulties.

In the outboard tail configuration, the tail surfaces are positioned so that they interact constructively with the upwash behind the wing tips and, with careful design, can significantly reduce drag to improve efficiency, without reducing the handling qualities or adding unduly to the structural loads on the wing.

[5] It was developed during World War II by German designers Richard Vogt and George Haag at Blohm & Voss.

In order to test the proposed control system, Škoda-Kauba adapted the V-6 design as the SK SL6 in 1944.

[9] During the late 1950s and early 1960s the principles of the outboard tail were re-investigated by NASA (formerly NACA) engineers, as a part of their research programme into design configurations for supersonic flight.

[1] Burt Rutan at Scaled Composites became interested in the configuration for its potential as a variable-geometry stabiliser on a spaceplane.

During atmospheric re-entry from space, the tail would rotate vertically to stabilise the plane, the rest of which remained horizontal but fell near-vertically.