RCU Forums - View Single Post - School Project - Help
View Single Post
Old 12-10-2013 | 07:26 AM
  #84  
AMA 74894's Avatar
AMA 74894
Moderator
My Feedback: (1)
 
Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 1,216
Likes: 0
Received 4 Likes on 4 Posts
From: Spicer, MN
Default

there in one BIG thing missing from your comparison of conventional vs tricycle landing gear...
you're right of course, that 80-90% of bush airplanes have conventional (tail dragger) landing gear, and there are many reasons for that.
there are however two BIG differences between ALL full scale aircraft and ALL remotely controlled aircraft:
1) in full scale aircraft the person manipulating the controls is sitting inside the aircraft and can feel every control nuance and feedback (the pilot is essentially an accelerometer)
2) in full scale aircraft the pilot has specifically an airspeed indicator, a turn and bank indicator and most likely an artificial horizon or other method of precisely determining the aircraft's pitch angle.

in RC aircraft the pilot has neither of these items, and must 'guess'.
you will rarely see experienced full scale pilots 'ground loop' a taildragger because he has these 2 key items and knows how to use them.
you will regularly see experienced RC pilots 'ground loop' an RC taildragger because he does not have those 2 key items.

this is not a 'dig' on anyone's rc experience or flying abilities, and not ALL RC pilots WILL groundloop their taildraggers, but the simple fact is that tricycle gear RC airplanes are much more forgiving in their ground handling tendencies than are conventional gear RC airplanes generally speaking.

incidentally, no disrespect is meant by me either, (and none is taken )
not trying to blow my own horn, but as a reference point: I've been flying RC airplanes and helicopters of all types since 1968 when I was six, and have been flying full scale airplanes since 1985 (including tricycle gear, conventional gear, (from Cessna 152's to DC3's) single and multi engine recip and jets from Challengers and Gulfstreams to C-5 Galaxy's) I'm an A&P Mechanic and Flight Engineer also.

Last edited by AMA 74894; 12-10-2013 at 07:37 AM. Reason: added info