conversion of trainer to taildragger?
 

hi
has somebody done it? is there any pic of it?

conversion of trainer to taildragger?
 

My trainer is a taildragger !! (comes by design)

It's a lasermodels IBIS.

If you want to convert it, there's actually only 2 thing you will have to do:

1) place the main landing gear more forward (approx. right before the leading edge of the wing) and reinforce the hull where you mount them

2) add a tail wheel gear, and perhaps reinforce the bottom end of the fuselage by doubling it with ply.


Check http://www.lasermodels.com/html/m02306.html for a sideview of my trainer !

conversion of trainer to taildragger?
 

I've done it with my Balsa USA Stik and it's a common conversion on, for instance, a Sig Kadet Senior. 'Tis fun! You've gotta move the main gear forward, ensuring that there's enough strength in the fuselage at that point. It should go, as a starting point, probably as far ahead of the CG as it is behind the CG now.

Then you've gotta engineer a tailwheel. It can be fixed, swivelling, or steerable via the rudder. Fixed will work, but ground-handling suffers. (I owned a tail-skid plane for a while.....think about you're gonna turn the plane on the ground. I had to give it down elevator to get the tail up. Do you really wanna do that?) swivelling is easy to mount. Steerable will take a little head-scratching, but is easy.....just eyeball your tail and see which commercially available tailwheel will work for you.

conversion of trainer to taildragger?
 

I converted my LT-40, I have some pics I can send you.

conversion of trainer to taildragger?
 

What do you do about checking the CG once you make the gear changes? Is there a way to calculate a new CG?

conversion of trainer to taildragger?
 

thanks to all

Actually it is my friends trainer he wants to convert it but probably i have to do the work, so looking for the best and easiest way.
How much it will affect to flying ability?

conversion of trainer to taildragger?
 

as i understand it CG should stay where it is?!?!

conversion of trainer to taildragger?
 

Where the CG should be would stay the same, but the plane would need re-balancing do to moving the main gear forward and removing the nose gear.

conversion of trainer to taildragger?
 

agree, cg stays in place but some extra weight may be needed

conversion of trainer to taildragger?
 

Before you add weight try moving the battery and receiver around and see if you can get it to balance that way. Adding weight sould be the last resort!

conversion of trainer to taildragger?
 

do the conversion, then re-balance it. You're going to rremove some hardware from the nose, right? The nosegear, pivot, pushrod.....less stuff also means less stuff to break. You're gonna add a little weight in the tail. It will need rebalancing, but it must be rebalanced on the original point of balance! That's what makes the thing fly right, right?

As far as flying ability, it'll quite probably fly a little better, but I don't think it will be all that noticeable on a trainer. You're going to remove more weight than you put back on, so the plane will be lighter by an ounce or two.

Just ensure the CG remains the same!

For what it's worth, the maingear should be ahead of the CG, but not by much. Take a look at a Cub for the relationship - those are good handling taildraggers. Take a look at a traditional old-timer to see a BAD relationship. That's the way they built them back then, but that doesn't make it right - those planes weren't meant to be ground-handling queens, and with the gear that far forward they weren't. (personal experience speaking). If you want to personally experience groundloops on takeoff, put the gear up there.........

conversion of trainer to taildragger?
 

Well said Rob!

conversion of trainer to taildragger?
 

I've converted a MidWest AeroStar .40 to a taildragger and now I'm in the process of converting a .60 trainer by Hobbico to a taildragger....I don't need one of those 'firewall removers' :-)

Jerry

conversion of trainer to taildragger?
 

i´f we dig a little deeper, is there any sense to remove the wings down and lessen dihedral of the trainer to amend maneuverability.
Yes, i know i can`t make a aerobatic out of it but still?

conversion of trainer to taildragger?
 

*grin* You're just having fun with this thing...

Removing dihedral will make it more maneuverable, but I don't think I'd bother unless the wing was broken. Disassembling (read: sawing) the centerjoint out of a wing isn't to be taken lightly. By 'moving it down' do you mean carving on the fuselage to lower the wing saddle?


There's lots of aerodynamics involved in airplane design and simply lowering the wing would probably require changes in other areas, like thrust line, or the plane would become a thing of evil. By 'thrust line' I mean you'd have to-aim the engine. It's probably got down- and right-thrust now - lowering the wing would change the aerodynamic 'balance' of the plane...I can't think of a better word to describe it.....

You wanna play? Find a buddy with a crashed plane and swap his wing onto your trainer! *grin* You ain't seen nuthin' 'til you've seen a Balsa USA Stik with a symmetrical wing that was probably 25% smaller than the original...I think it was off an UltraSport..... It was horrid for a while.....but with solid wood tail surfaces, you can go at it with a saw and make 'em smaller..... Bigger engine, smaller wing, smaller tail surfaces... *grin* It was stupid.

A minor 'aerodynamic balance' thing I did was swapping the 2.75" (I think) maingear wheels for Dave Brown's stupidly huge 6" foamies Just cuz I had 'em j- why not? This was on the same Balsa USA Stik, though with its original wing/tail. You know what? It flew better! That was simply a fortunate coincidence, but I figured it out:

As a trainer goes faster, they almost all 'balloon' - the wing generates more lift at higher speeds and you've gotta feed in down-elevator to keep it level. The wheels added so much drag below the engine's thrustline that they counteracted that lift, 'pushing' the nose down due to drag. It also kept the speed down with all that additional drag.....but trainers ain't meant to go fast anyway.

Have fun :)

conversion of trainer to taildragger?
 

The reason i mentioned this at all, was that i have seen pics of it. but i can`t find the webpage anymore. Probably it is easier to buy a plane built for aerobatics. But in the other hand it is my friends plane, would be nice to experiment with his plane rather my own. :)
I guess i will not remove the wing, just the landing gear.

thanks for all replys
crow

conversion of trainer to taildragger?
 

'Typical' modifications to one of the nicest trainers of them all - the Sig Kadet Senior:

Remove most of the dihedral (at building time). Not all - a perfectly flat wing looks, lots of the time, as it's drooping. Leave 1/2" or so. That ain't much on that big a wing.

Add ailerons - the original wing doesn't have any. So, you're flattening the wing (originally a 3-channel plane with lots of dihedral, right?) and adding ailerons.

Convert to a taildragger.

Add wheelpants.

It starts looking less like a trainer and more like a plane, and it flies differently. 'Better' is in the eye of the beholder - I personally like a big 3-channel plane for those dead-calm Sunday venings.....way relaxing.

Don't even ask about the low-wing Kadet Senior I saw years ago..... :)

conversion of trainer to taildragger?
 

I'm just finishing up converting my LT-40 Kadet over to a taildragger. Added DuBro main gear, and a Great Planes tailwheel. Trying to figure out how to get tailwheel steering is a pain on this plane, because the rudder is completely above the Elevator. I have elected to leave my tailwheel free castoring, instead of trying to rig a pull pull system, or something else. By looking at it, in order to do that, I would have to re mount the rudder servo in the center of the fuselage, instead of where it is now, on the left side in the stock tray. It seems to work well as a free castoring system anyway. :D

conversion of trainer to taildragger?
 

I converted my Hangar 9 Xtra Easy to a tail dragger setup. I had the same problem Lowlevldevl had with the vertical stab and rudder completely over the horiz stab and elevator. Since the elevator sticks out further than the rudder there is no way to directly connect the tail wheel to the rudder. So what I did was run a 2-56 rod through the fuselage and attached one end to the rudder servo and the other to the tail wheel. With a little bending of the pushrod and a small exit hole on the bottom of the fuselage I was ready to go. I've put a lot of flights on this setup and it has worked flawlessly.

conversion of trainer to taildragger?
 

My setup was a little different. A cheapo tailwheel mount which was mounted fon the bottom of the fuse with the swivel point in line with the rudder. Then I ran the tailwheel wire straight up through the fuse to the rudder - where I applied some pliers to put a bend in it. THEN I 'sewed' the wire to the rudder itself.........all done.

conversion of trainer to taildragger?
 

I convert many to tail dragger. I like it better in most cases. You are not changing much so ballance shouldn't change a lot.

conversion of trainer to taildragger?
 

That's the ticket, Rob. As long as the tailwheel gear wire runs straight up on the rudder hinge line to the rudder, a simple hole is all it needs, no matter where the elevator is. If you put a 90 deg. bend on the top of the wire going straight back, you can anchor the wire to the rudder by drilling a hole and gluing the wire into the rudder itself.
Wish I had Minnflyer's graphics talents. It's much simpler and easier than I made it sound.

conversion of trainer to taildragger?
 

I didn't do the hole through the elevator route because the rudder on my plane slants aft quite a bit. It made it a pain in the butt trying to get the bend right then attach it to the rudder.

As far as balance goes, after the mod the c.g. didn't change a bit.

conversion of trainer to taildragger?
 

allright everybody

started this thread in the morning and now the plane has become to an taildragger. Turned out well. CG is just in right place. Didn`t have to add or lessen weight. Have to buy a small tailwheel tomorrow.
For a steerable tailwheel i drilled a hole thru the fuse and anchored the wire to the rudder. Seems to be ok, but lets see tomorrow on the field.

Thanks everbody for replys
Crow

conversion of trainer to taildragger?
 

As a total hack, when flying off snow/ice, I just clamped a piece of flexible plastic over the tailwheel for a skid :)

It'll be fine. Go fly :)