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The tail of an airplane serves several purposes, but the main purpose is to provide stability for the airplane, meaning that if the airplane is tilted off course by a gust of wind, it can return to its original position. The tail includes control surfaces to control the plane. There's the vertical stablizer, which is the "tail fin" of the plane. This keeps the plane in line with the direction of motion. In other words, it controls yaw. To change yaw, a pilot moves the rudder, also found on the tail. Also on the tail is the horizontal stabilizer, or "rear wing", which controls pitch. To change pitch, a pilot moves the elevator. Check out this cool diagram from NASA to learn more about the parts of an airplane!