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Old 01-23-2009 | 05:12 AM
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Sandmann_AU
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Default RE: astro hog bipe?

Moving the landing gear forward increases the weight behind the landing gear, which will increase the chance of the tail wanting to overtake the nose when landing. With all taildraggers it's a juggling act between nose-overs and ground spins.

Other than that, bipes have much more drag and much more lift. In practice this means you'll lift off the ground at a lower speed, but have a lower maximum speed. It'll also slow down a lot faster than you're probably used to, which can lead to sudden stalls, albeit at a lower speed. You also have twice as many wing tips to have tip stalls on so they can get a little frisky at low speeds. Unless you're coming in to land fairly hot you'll want to keep the engine speed up slightly more than normal. You can't just drop to idle and float these things in - it's more like flying them onto the ground. If you have a simulator, practice setting your approach angle with the elevator, holding it steady, and using the throttle to control rate of descent.

Normal tail-dragger principles apply of course, keep the elevator up when taxi-ing around, in fact I use high rates on my Skybolt when taxi-ing to keep the tail wheel on the ground and get the most out of the elevator at low speeds. Switch to low rates before take off though. When building up speed for take off you need to "fly the tail" before you get the wheels off the ground.

Biplanes are somewhat shorter in the fuselage than monoplanes (compared to the overall amount of wing length & surface) and turn slightly differently. The rudder becomes more important on these planes - you might want to mix a little rudder into the ailerons if you have a computer radio to avoid adverse yaw (the tendency for the plane to yaw right when the ailerons make it bank left). You'll find that bipes are more eager to climb and dive because of the shorter fuse too - it's nothing major but can take you by surprise at first.

I've been flying my first bipe for about 2 months now, and it's very quickly become my favourite plane. I'm sure you'll enjoy it's subtle differences, as well as the attention from those around you when you fly it. (Apart from anything else - when you've done a sharp descending turn in from the base leg to overfly the runway and the plane goes into silhouette, the subconscious expectation to see a mad German in a red triplane tracking yours is enough to make it worth while. )