Aircraft configuration

A n airplane consists of a fuselage, or body; a wing or wings as sustaining surfaces; flight control surfaces; an undercarriage or landing gear; and a power plant.

The fuselage is the main structure of an airplane which houses the crew, and sometimes the armament and the power plant. The tail group or empennage and the landing gear are attached to it. The crew of a fighter usually consists of one man  the pilot. Bombers may have a crew of 3 to 12 men: pilot, copilot, navigator, aerial engineer, radio operator, bombardier and gunner, as well as some other crew members. The fuselage contains the pilot cockpit with all flight and engine controls, instruments, radio and navigation equipment.

Wings

All airplanes, by definition, have wings. Some are nearly all wing with a very small cockpit. Others have minimal wings, or wings that seem to be merely extensions of a blended, aerodynamic fuselage, such as the space shuttle.

Tail Assembly

Most airplanes, except for flying wings, have a tail assembly attached to the rear of the fuselage, consisting of vertical and horizontal stabilizers, which look like small wings; a rudder; and elevators. The components of the tail assembly are collectively referred to as the empennage.

The stabilizers serve to help keep the airplane stable while in flight. The rudder is at the trailing edge of the vertical stabilizer and is used by the airplane to help control turns. An airplane actually turns by banking, or moving, its wings laterally, but the rudder helps keep the turn coordinated by serving much like a boat’s rudder to move the nose of the airplane left or right. Moving an airplane’s nose left or right is known as a yaw motion. Rudder motion is usually controlled by two pedals on the floor of the cockpit, which are pushed by the pilot.

E levators are control surfaces at the trailing edge of horizontal stabilizers. The elevators control the up-and-down motion, or pitch, of the airplane’s nose. Moving the elevators up into the airstream will cause the tail to go down and the nose to pitch up. A pilot controls pitch by moving a control column or stick.

Landing Gear

All airplanes must have some type of landing gear. Modern aircraft employ brakes, wheels, and tires designed specifically for the demands of flight. Tires must be capable of going from a standstill to nearly 322 km/h (200 mph) at landing, as well as carrying nearly 454 metric tons. Brakes, often incorporating special heat-resistant materials, must be able to handle emergencies, such as a 400-metric-ton airliner aborting a takeoff at the last possible moment. Antiskid braking systems, common on automobiles today, were originally developed for aircraft and are used to gain maximum possible braking power on wet or icy runways.

Larger and more complex aircraft typically have retractable landing gear  so called because they can be pulled up into the wing or fuselage after takeoff. Having retractable gear greatly reduces the drag generated by the wheel structures that would otherwise hang out in the airstream.