ORIGINAL: Rubberduck
ORIGINAL: MinnFlyer
Your plane has a balance point. The wheels are set so it will rest on all three wheels when proerly balanced. If you re-balance it so it does NOT sit on those three wheels, it isn't balanced anymore, is it?
What's worse is that by re-balancing so it sits on it's tail would mean adding tail weight - which means a tail-heavy airplane - which means you'll be bringing it home in a trash bag. [
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Huh? Let me see if I understand...when converting to a taildragger, I want the plane to balance on the mains, correct? And the mains need to be positioned roughly near the leading edge of the wing as to avoid nose-overs.
Rubberduck
When Minn is talking about "balance" is his very good explanation, he is talking about once the plane is moving and using the elevator to "balance" the plane so it does not want to nose over and has nothing to do with the center of gravity (CG) in this case. Scale Warbirds are best known for wanting to nose over and the main reason is the main wheels are behind the leading edge of the wing so the CG is closer to the main wheels.
In the case of a trike gear configuration, the main wheels are back behind to CG point which gives inherent stability. In the case of a taildragger, the mains are in front of the CG point so placement of the mains are crucial to the plane wanting to tip over. The problem is that with retracts, the mains need to be behind the leading edge so that they can retract up into the wing. Non retract planes have the main wheels axle slightly ahead of the leading edge which helps with ground and takeoff roll handling.
In a taildragger configuration, it is possible to have the main wheels to far forward which will make ground handling difficult at best.
I know this is not the best explanation so maybe someone else can explain it a bit better.