A tale of tall tails
All those classic four engined propliners seemed to grow their tail area as engine power and propeller diameter increased. DC-6s, DC-7s, Constellations (split between three fins), Boeing Stratocruisers and the like. This apparently was to counter the gyroscopic effect of what was a flywheel attached to the front of each engine and at each change of power setting or direction.
As a boy of 11 or 12 I lived in a ground floor flat adjacent to the runway at what was then RAF Khormaksar, Aden, and I soon became adept at recognising the aircraft, both civil and military, that seemed to arrive and take off at all hours of the day and night by the sound of their engines and the shape of their vertical stabilisers. Their tails would trundle back and forth like shark fins and I would often wish we'd lived on a higher floor so we'd have a better view from our balcony. From the selection available at that time probably the Britannia held the prize for the most ostentatious tail. Compared with that, the DH Comet 4 had a tiny tail that looked as if it had been unwell. I couldn't imagine at that time that I'd survive long enough to see the US moon landings, the rise and decline of the Boeing 747, Concorde, and maybe the Airbus A380.
This afternoon while working in my garden, among the steady flow of aircraft passing overhead en route to land at Manchester airport, an A380 passed overhead. It's a while since I've seen one and it's still an impressive sight to see. I watched it while it altered course for Manchester and majestically faded from view. The following aircraft seemed like minnows by comparison. All very samey too, with the same twin-engine, swept wing design at the same angle of sweep and probably the same engines too. A convergence of design, perhaps,and it's what works, but there's just not the variety that I used to see when I was younger. Perhaps with the emergence of smaller aircraft that can be accommodated at any airport, but which have the same range as the behemoths, such aircraft as the 747 and the A380 are ultimately doomed but it will be sad to see them go.
Maybe I will live to see some revolutionary new design such as that which heralded the jet age, which will take aviation into a new eco friendly era, though it's likely for the immediate future that due to economic and environmental pressures, people will just tend to fly less.
