The Pelikan tail is an experimental tail design for fighter jets. Originally conceived by Ralph Pelikan, who was hired by McDonnell Aircraft

McDonnell Aircraft

The McDonnell Aircraft Corporation was an American aerospace manufacturer based in St. Louis, Missouri. The company was founded on July 16, 1939 by James Smith McDonnell, and was best known for its military fighters, including the F-4 Phantom II, and manned spacecraft including the Mercury capsule...

, later worked for McDonnell Douglas

McDonnell Douglas

McDonnell Douglas was a major American aerospace manufacturer and defense contractor, producing a number of famous commercial and military aircraft. It formed from a merger of McDonnell Aircraft and Douglas Aircraft in 1967. McDonnell Douglas was based at Lambert-St. Louis International Airport...

 and after another merger, retired from Boeing

Boeing

The Boeing Company is an American multinational aerospace and defense corporation, founded in 1916 by William E. Boeing in Seattle, Washington. Boeing has expanded over the years, merging with McDonnell Douglas in 1997. Boeing Corporate headquarters has been in Chicago, Illinois since 2001...

. His design has not to date been incorporated into any publicly available jets. However, it has been considered or included in design specifications in the original Boeing X-32

Boeing X-32

The Boeing X-32 was a multi-purpose jet fighter in the Joint Strike Fighter contest. It lost to the Lockheed Martin X-35 demonstrator which was further developed into the F-35 Lightning II.-Background:...

 fighter design.

Advantages and disadvantages

The Pelikan design differs from the traditional elevator-and-rudder design in that it uses only two control surfaces in order to achieve control of pitch, yaw, and roll. When evaluated by Boeing engineers in October 1998, they found advantages of greater pitch control at high angles of attack and that two tails would have a lower radar signature than four. However, they also found that using two larger control surfaces instead of four, might actually make the aircraft heavier. The bigger hydraulic pumps and cylinders needed to operate the larger surfaces would add 800 to 900 lb (362.9 to 408.2 ) of weight to the design. This, and other factors made them use a four-post tail instead.

Tests by Virginia Tech students

Virginia Tech students built a Pelikan tail model and got positive results for its viability using a wind tunnel. The analysis by the students found several advantages such as a lower vertical surface area, which aids in stealth; less drag due to skin friction; and a lower weight due to the need for two as opposed to the usual four hydraulic actuators.