Tailplane

A tailplane, also known as horizontal stabilizer (or horizontal stabiliser), is a small lifting surface located on the tail (empennage) behind the main lifting surfaces of a fixed-wing aircraft as well as other non-fixed wing aircraft such as helicopters and gyroplanes. However, not all fixed-wing aircraft have tailplanes, such as those configured with canards, flying-wing aircraft, where there is no tail, and v-tail aircraft where the fin/rudder and tail-plane are combined to form two diagonal surfaces in a V layout. The tailplane serves three purposes: equilibrium, stability and control.

In addition the tailplane helps adjust for changes in the center of lift, and center of gravity caused by changes in speed and attitude, or when fuel is burned off, or when cargo or payload is dropped from the aircraft.