It’s intuitive that the horizontal extrusions (like the wings) would help with stability, but what about the vertical one, extruding upwards from the back?
How does it interact with the wind and help keep the plane steady? If anything, wouldn’t that surface be “pushed” over by the wind, like a sail? And does it serve any other purposes?
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The role of the “vertical stabilizer” is right in the name.
The horizontal surfaces control the plane along the nose up-down axis of rotation but they have limited ability to control it along the nose left-right axis.
If you want to make a slow, arcing turn like a boat instead of rolling into it like a fighter plane, you’ll use the tail rudder.
Also useful when there’s a crosswind that keeps trying to push the nose sideways and you don’t want to fly on an angle the whole time.
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