Terrible ground handling tail dragger
 

Hi,

I know you guys tend to build planes without landing gear for combat, but sometimes you stick them on for fun. I built a tail dragger and it wont taxi for nothing. It wants to turn to the right, and it takes full left rudder to keep it going straight. The gear is square to the fusealge, and the wheels turn freely. I'm looking for things to check or try to fix this problem.

Thanks,
Soj

Terrible ground handling tail dragger
 

I can't attach the tail wheel to the rudder, so it was free floating. I thought maybe that was the problem, so I turned it into a tail skid. That didn't help either. I'm playing with CG and landing gear width, but I'm not hopeful of either.

Soj

Terrible ground handling tail dragger
 

Don't do these all at once... you may fix it quickly with the first suggestion.

Go back to the tailwheel, and sprng load it to stay centered, but allow some pressure to make it turn a bit. The turning rubber wheel will give better control of taxi on pavement than any skid.

Verify the wheels have no VISIBLE toe angle, and when measured carefully, absolutely no toe-out allowed. 1 to 3 deg toe-in is allowable. More is excessive.

Next... try shifting the axles to be directly under the LE of the wing, to 1/2 wheel dia forward of that location.

Verify CG at or forward of 30% mean chord. (straight wing it would be 30% of root chord)

CG and wheel location can play havoc with a taildragger's ground performance.

If that don't fix it... send digital pics. There'll be a visible problem.

Try this
 

Your tailwheel can't be free floating. Just the torque of the engine will send you to one side or the other. A skid doesn't work at all in grass, and marginally on pavement.You can attach your tailwheel to the rudder with a dual spring setup from DuBro. It uses two control horns on the rudder and then two springs go down to the tailwheel, which has a bracket. Make sure you have the correct toe-in on the front wheels, also. If all else fails, move the main gear back and add a nose wheel.