In article ,
Guy Alcala writes:
Emmanuel Gustin wrote:

"Merlin Dorfman" wrote in message
...

Did the Soviets learn about the all-flying tail from the
captured F-86, and put it on their later fighters

The F-86A did not have the flying tail, this feature was
introduced by the F-86E. This model entered combat in
Korea in September 1951.

The first Soviet fighter with the flying tail appears to
have been the SM-9/2 prototype of the MiG-19, which
was built in 1954.

So it is quite likely that the Soviets were aware of the use
of a slab tailplane on the F-86E when they designed the
SM-9/2. On the other hand, NASA's adoption of the
'flying tail' appears to have been inspired by British
data.

There's a common misconception here. The "all-flying tail" on the
F-86E and F wasn't a slab, it was a movable stabilizer with
separate (but linked) elevator, as developed for the XS-1 (and
credited by Yeager with allowing the a/c to be controllable through
the Mach). The slab came in on the F-100, IIRR. From what I
recall, there'd come a Mach number when the shock wave from
compressibility would make the elevator ineffective (usually
leading to tuck under), but the stabilizer itself would then be
forward of the shock and retain its effectiveness. So the
stabilizer was made movable (i.e. trimmable like a Buff, but
directly connected to the joystick instead of just the trim switch)
and linked to the elevator around a center pivot. The two surfaces
were geared to move in a certain relationship to each other. I
don't know the specific details (whether it was based on IMN or
just a pure mechanical relationship). Hopefully Mary, Pete or
someone else can fill in the details.

F-86D/Ls and Hs had a one-piece slab.
The reason for th all-moving tails (dangit, no chalkboard again! Assume a
chalkboard, and a lot of Fighter-Pilot hand talking)
Think of the stabilizer/elevator combination as a wing (Wich, after
all, it is) At subsonic speeds, deflecting the elevator affects the
airflow over the entire surface, so that the entire are of the
stabilizer is used to control pitch. As the flow over the stabilizer
gets transonic, and the shockwaves form, elevator deflection begins t
only effect the flow over the elevators themselves, greatly reducing
effectiveness. The solution is to move the entire stab (stabilator),
which lets the entire surface develop whatever lift needs to be
created to counterbalance the wing. (It's early yat - I've only had 1
cuppa Coffee) Why doesn't every airplane use this? (The Wright
Brothers did) The problem is that once the stabilizer had to get
above a certain small size, it's danged hard to move manually, no
matter how much you balance it. It took the advent of powered
controls, (The electric screw jack on the XS-1, or the hydraulics on
the F-86E) to make it practical.

You can certainly fly a transonic or supersonic airplane without using
a slab, but what happens is that your pitch authority (Ability to
raise or lower the nose) decreases, and, depending on the
configuration, teh airplane may not be able to be trimmed at all.
(The pitchup of the F-84s, for example.)

--
Pete Stickney
A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many
bad measures. -- Daniel Webster