OK, let's start a pool . Who says he'll chop up at least one prop tomorrow? *grin* Firewall the throttle and the plane noses over

eheh,
I let you know tomorrow, how it went.

Keep the stick back and keep the nose out of the dirt. Good luck, you will do great.

I converted a Global .60 ARF.

so,
the taildragger was a good boy today, no bad habits at all. Found that landing is much easier than on trigear.
Took some nice pic, i let you see tomorrow.

thanks one more time to everybody founding some time to reply here.
Crow

P.S. guys who bet on my crash, have lost!!!

I never really understood the debate on ground-handling characteristics and the 'evils' of taildraggers. Our planes are so overpowered (in general) that takeoffs are the same, for all intents and purposes, and I have never had a problem landing. Holding up-elevator while taxiing (and taxiing is supposed to be slow - not a race) eliminated all ground-looping problems as well.

Congrats!

One of the students at my club has an Alpha trainer that was converted to a tail dragger.

It is slightly harder to get off the ground than the trike version, but not overly so. Landing is pretty much the same either way.

If you are flying off of smooth pavement with lots of power, there might be no difference in take off, but on a grass field with bumps and holes and whatnot, trike geared planes tend to self-correct for much of it, while a taildragger can go from ok to not-ok very quickly. Depends a lot on the particular plane though.

The other day, it took 3 or 4 pilots at least 10 tries to get a particular old timer off the grass at my field. Part of the problem was the grass, part of it was the plane.

The tail lifts right up when I give my tail-dragger some throttle on take-off. I use a pull-pull on my tail wheel with springs in-line to help absorb impact from clumps of grass or what have you. It works remarkably well and provides terrific ground handling.

allright, put some pic of yesterday up in my gallery.
The one with piper is me and the other guy is friend of mine. Had a great day!

Crow

That troublesome old-timer? Without even seeing it, I have a guess: the gear is too far forward. My old-timer gave me absolute fits! It had bendy music-wire gear and would tend to splay out after a few flights, so I'd bend it back in. No problem, right?

What I was doing inadvertently was also bending it forward when I bent it back in. This moved the gear further and further forward of the CG. The theory behind this problem is that the further forward of the CG the gear is, the more weight you have behind the gear. Sounds simple - but the end result is a ground-looping fiend of a plane. I just couldn't get it up - the plane, that is. I'd start my roll, the tail would swing off one way or other and that was the end of it. I didn't have enough speed for the rudder to be effective.

When I figured it out I simply bent the gear backwards, getting it closer to the CG - problem fixed.

Hi RobS
I expect you are talking about trainer not my piper. You say it`s too much forward, but the balance came out nice and it flys great. So i don`t see reason to change it.
I applyed the gear just half of inch from wings leading edge, about like piper has.

Sorry if missed the point of your reply
Crow

Not at all, Crow. I was replying to the guy who said somebody was wrestling with an old-timer. If you look at pics of traditional old-timers, lotss of 'em had the wheels so far forward that they were almost under the prop.....congrats on a good flight!

oh stupid me!

Added the mains from a Senior Telemaster to my SST .40. It's a touch too wide at the fuse, but not much. Sig pants, 2 3/4" tires and a Klett tailwheel. Tip plates and a K&B .61. It's a real blast to fly, but I had to pay attention to the angle of those thick gear legs as relates to the wing, to avoid a lifting effect at speed, since the fuse bottom was tapering towards the nose, and the gear was canted slightly and needed a shim to level it with the wing. It flies with one click of down trim. I also needed to surface mount the elevator and rudder servos to balance it without adding weight.

Rob,
Oh, no question that a big part of the "old timers" having such bad ground handling was the gear being way way too far forward. No one at the field that day had any question as to WHY it was difficult, that's for sure.