Tail skid protects planes — and scares pilots

The FHC’s B-25J has a basketball-sized bump on its underside. The odd appendage is a tail skid, protecting the rear of the tail from damage should the pilot pull the nose up too high on takeoff. Early models of the plane were equipped with a retractable skid. Later aircraft had simple fixed skids. A tail strike on takeoff was a rare occurrence and never a good thing. While Jimmy Doolittle’s pilots were training to fly from a carrier deck, some of them got a little overzealous at the controls. As one author put it, “As the takeoff training of the pilots progressed, it proved to be a harrowing experience for most of them. Army Air Force pilots were not taught during their training to take off in extremely short distances at bare minimum airspeed. Taking off in a medium bomber with the tail skid occasionally striking the ground was unnatural and scary to them.”