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tail wheel

British  

noun

  1. a wheel fitted to the rear of a vehicle, esp the landing wheel under the tail of an aircraft

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

I kept the nose up so that the tail wheel touched down first.

From The Verge

Her Piper Cub, she recently told researchers, was golden yellow and had “a tail wheel, so you had two main wheels under the wings and one under the tail.”

From The New Yorker

When the four friends surveyed their finished craft, they saw a crate whose fuselage had only three seats, whose engine was Polish, whose tail wheel came from a Nazi Messerschmitt, whose carburetors and exhaust stacks were American.

From Time Magazine Archive

"We're getting so close," said Stafford, "all you have to do is put your tail wheel down and we're there."

From Time Magazine Archive

One student wrote on a plane's maintenance report: "Tail wheel crazy."

From Time Magazine Archive