Pelikan tail

This article is about the tail design for aircraft. For the bird, see Pelican.
Pelikan tail design

The Pelikan tail is an experimental tail design for fighter jets. It was originally conceived by Ralph Pelikan,[1] who was hired by McDonnell Aircraft, later worked for McDonnell Douglas after the merger of McDonnell with Douglas and, after another merger, retired from Boeing. The concept was used in the Northrop YF-23 fighter. However, it has been considered or included in design specifications in the McDonnell Douglas BAE Joint Strike fighter (JSF) design which was eliminated before prototype stage[2][3]

  1. ^ Evan Hadingham (2003-01-01). "Winner Take All (All the nail biting, second guessing, and sheer engineering brilliance in the battle to build the better Joint Strike Fighter.)". Air & Space Magazine: 2&3. Retrieved 2008-05-05.
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference nova was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ "McDD/Northrop/BAe ASTOVL/MRF/JAST/JSF studies". Secret Projects Forum. Retrieved 2021-07-19.