| Summary: | A tailless aircraft (often tail-less) traditionally has all its horizontal control surfaces on its main wing surface. It has no horizontal stabilizer-either tailplane or canard foreplane (nor does it have a second wing in tandem arrangement). A 'tailless' type usually still has a vertical stabilizing fin (vertical stabilizer) and control surface (rudder). However, NASA has recently adopted the 'tailless' description for the novel X-36 research aircraft which has a canard foreplane but no vertical fin. The most successful tailless configuration has been the tailless delta, especially for combat aircraft. Flying wings are tailless designs which also lack a distinct fuselage, having the pilot, engines, etc. located directly in or on the wing. A tailless acroplane has no separate horizontal stabilizer, either behind (Tailplane) or in front of (canard foreplane) the main lifting surface. Because of this the aerodynamic achieve this center of an ordinary wing would lie ahead of the aircraft's center of gravity, creating instability in pitch. Some other method must be used to move the aerodynamic center backward and make the aircraft stable.
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