What did I see?

[anonymous-user]

Early last week three planes flew over my house in South Lincs - very low and slow.

They were each twin prop and looked like WW2 fighter bombers. I think they had a t-tail but could be mistaken. I'm pretty sure they were not Mosquitos.

Anyone know what they were?

[Riley Blue]

Either the King Air and/or Shadow rehearsing for the Queen's Birthday flypast

http://www.military-airshows.co.uk/press17/queensb...

[Eric Mc]

garyhun said:

Early last week three planes flew over my house in South Lincs - very low and slow.

They were each twin prop and looked like WW2 fighter bombers. I think they had a t-tail but could be mistaken. I'm pretty sure they were not Mosquitos.

Anyone know what they were?

They won't be Mosquitoes that's for sure.

[anonymous-user]

Riley Blue said:

Either the King Air and/or Shadow rehearsing for the Queen's Birthday flypast

http://www.military-airshows.co.uk/press17/queensb...

Many thanks - it was indeed the Shadow and King Air x 2.

[Eric Mc]

I can't think of many (indeed any) World War 2 era aircraft that featured actual T Tails. They were very much a feature of aircraft design from the early 1960s.

[LotusOmega375D]

Westland Whirlwind's pretty close... but no cigar

[Eric Mc]

Yes - the CRUCIFORM tail did appear on a number of designs in that period . The Gloster Meteor and the Westland Welkin all had similar high set tail planes. But the genuine T-Tail really arrived with the generation of airliners and biz jets that started appearing in the early 1960s. Even the airliner that is sometimes credited as a T-Tail design (the Caravelle) which came out in teh mid 1950s is still a cruciform arrangement.

It then became such a fad that aircraft that didn't really need T-tails started appearing - such as the 200 Series of the King Air, later versions of the PA-32 family, the PA-38 Tomahawk, the Beech 77 and even a version of the PA-31 known as the PA-42 Cheyenne.

[LotusOmega375D]

Does the Victor qualify as an early 1950s example? Also Starfighter a few years later?

[Eric Mc]

Good call on those two. And this weird thing as well -

[Riley Blue]

The Javelin must be in with a shout, first flight 1951.

[Eric Mc]

Riley Blue said:

The Javelin must be in with a shout, first flight 1951.

True.

The idea with these earlier T-tail and mid tailfin mounted tailplanes was to keep the tailplane out of airflow off the wings - especially in the transonic regions. The MiG 15 also had a mid tailfin mounted tailplane (as did the Mig 17 and 19).

The airliner T-Tails were to allow placement of the engines at the rear which in turn allowed a "clean" wing.

The T-Tails that appeared on light aircraft in the 70s were more of a fashion statement.