The purpose of this paper is to present the case that can be made for the tailless aircraft on the grounds of improved performance and operational suitability.

The whole field of possible investigation is not treated here with uniform thoroughness and the main reason for this is that I have only quoted detailed results for those cases which I have actually considered myself, so that in some instances the general qualitative arguments can be backed up by actual figures, whereas in others the argument has had to be confined to generalities.