Originally Posted by
Kentli22
Mattnew, how does the torque affect or dominate the taxi progress that makes the plane to suddenly shifts from a straight line?
the width between the wheels and my thumb control are not an issue.
I respectfully disagree, mainly because of your question.
try this
1. Go out and taxi by quickly moving the throttle to full and back to idle again several times in a row
2. go out and taxi by smoothly moving the throttle stick forward until the plane is moving, then cutting back little on the throttle so the plane coasts...
Which plane went straighter?
The torque from a normally rotating engine ( counter clockwise when looked at from the front ) pulls planes to the left due to the rotation. The quicker the throttle is advanced the more extreme the turn due to the engine torque. Typically engines are installed with a few degrees of right thrust to help counteract this rotation. But, by and large it is this pulling to the left that is what initially causes people's taxiing and takeoff issues. Rudders can be sensitive and it requires a smooth hand to feed in the rudder in order to counteract this effect and then to again feed it out smoothly in order to not overcorrect before the plane becomes airborne. Once overcorrecting happens its difficult to get things back on track. Different airplanes with different setups exhibit this behavior, but they pretty much all exhibit this behavior… especially tail draggers.
Thats one of the reasons people say to learn on a trike… b/c trikes help to minimize this… Although my personal opinion is people should learn to deal with this sooner than later, as almost every plane out there is a tail dragger save a few trainers.
and… +1 what BMatthews stated, all good advice.