P-51s with no stabilizer

[b29driver]

Airplanes missing an entire horizontal stabilizer don't make it back home.

Some do. More than one B-17 has. Google "B-17 All American". One of the most famous B-17 photos.
I realize that the P-51 has a one piece stab, which obviously is impossible to fly without. However, aircraft with left and right stabs can fly with one entire stab gone.

Steve G

Let me reiterate without being redundant and more specific at the same time. Airplanes of conventional design without ANY horizontal stabilizer don't make it back home or any further forward than the point where the ENTIRE horizontal stabilizer (i.e. the ENTIRE span from the right tip to the left tip, both sides of fuselage, from inboard to outboard of the the left and the right horizontal stabilizers) departs the empennage. The flight path of the parts being shedded from the disintegrating airframe will fall mostly vertical to the surface of the earth influenced only by the prevailing winds at the various altitudes through which they descend and the random aerodynamic fluttering of said parts during free fall.

Without "pole vaulting over mouse turds" what the "Captain really meant" was airplanes without horizontal stabilization (around the lateral axis) do a "Lomcevak" of Biblical proportions and go splat. That's a fact as real as gravity, taxes and the need to secure our borders.

[Obergrafeter]

Those are photos of the ultra rare Z model Mustang with the retractable horizontal stabilizers! Tighar is searching for one right now and will find it when they complete the search for AE.

[bipe215]

I realize that the P-51 has a one piece stab, which obviously is impossible to fly without. However, aircraft with left and right stabs can fly with one entire stab gone.

Uh, what?

I'm sorry, didn't mean to muddy the waters. I just immediately thought of the photo of 'All American' with her entire left stab and elevator gone, flying home.

Steve G