Taildragger v. Tricycle landing gear

You're dead right about cars... porsches, and nearly every other production 'sporty' car are not really sporty at all.

+1

It's all relative - if all you are used to is a Nissan Micra...a Porsche will feel sporty. If you jump out of a "properly quick car", it won't.

I've done a few sessions at Palmersport where you get to drive a number of different cars on the track, back-to-back, for an entire day. They had a race prepared 450bhp Jaguar XKR - by production car standards, a truly awesome piece of kit. But in comparison to the other cars at the track, it was like a pregnant cow at the Grand National.

Me neither, but I'm growing allergic against this repeated claim of "having flown taildraggers makes you a better pilot" stuff that one keeps hearing, mostly from amateurs on the internet.

Well, I think this highly depends on how you define "better pilot". Will flying a tail-dragger (which most likely is an older design, thus requiring better coordination during flight as well as during landing) make you a more proficient pilot, as far as seat-of-pants and the 'mechanics of flying' goes? Yes, I would guess so (haven't flown one myself yet unfortunately, but am considering a taildragger training on a PA18 in EDMK during my holidays). Will it make you a better pilot as far as all the rest of flying is concerned - risk assessment, cockpit organization, weather experience, radio proficiency, IFR, whatever? Most likely not.

Which part is more relevant to the everyday flying that we do? For me it's the latter, so taildragger hours will hopefully add a tool to my box - and it will be fun - but won't help much for the majority of my flying.

Dooga's point is well made. "Pilot" is a broad term. However, I opine that a "pilot" has a better chance of having more crisp and relevant hands and feet skills to apply to any aircraft type, if they have taildragger experience. Taildraggers force a pilot to fly with precise coordination of the controls. tricycle tolerate sloppiness.

I was test flying a Twin Otter a few years back, with a very benign mod. The company pilot right seat to me, who was one of those very relaxed 10,000+ flown everything types turned to me after the second landing and said: "You must fly taildraggers a lot". Indeed, at the time I only flew them occasionally, but I suppose I flew the Twin Otter with the same awareness for coordination, as I would the occasional taildragger I flew. But it apparently showed - I took it as a complement.

Ultimately, if you are piloting a plane - any plane, there could come a time when hands and feet skills will save the day, or at least keep things from getting worse. The pilot who splashed the Airbus into the Hudson, the pilot who glided into the Azores, and many others, probably very skilled IFR button pushers, were well able to throw the approach plates over their shoulder, and actually fly the plane well. Both credited experience on light aircraft for those skills.

Taildraggers are only "better" in some flying roles, and indeed, those are the lesser common ones these days. But, when you need one, a tricycle probably will be much less good for the job. And, taildragger are lots of fun!

I must admit this thread has sort of inspired me to maybe go back and finish off a Piper Cub checkout I began a few years ago. My preference for flying is to go somewhere (doesnt have to be far) but I hate the word "bimble" and isnt the kind of flying I do.

However, when I was having some lessons in the cub, I appreciated the simplicity of the aircraft, and that you could throw it around a bit more (and unlike in the PA28), using the rudder and keeping the ball in the centre is actually quite important to the flight characteristics. It was nice to fly low and slow (some say thats what I do anyhow as I fly a PA28), and take in some of the scenery obscured by the big low wings of the PA28.

My reason for stopping was because of lack of instructors at the time, and that the club limitation of 7kt crosswind I figured would preclude me from using it most of the time.

tricycle tolerate sloppiness

But of course that doesn't mean that tricycle pilots ARE sloppy.

I must admit this thread has sort of inspired me to maybe go back and finish off a Piper Cub checkout I began a few years ago.

And I just registered for some PA18 tailwheel instruction in two weeks time. Lets see how it goes, and whether computer simulator experience will be a benefit. Have to do a couple of landings in the RoF Dr.1 to get the feet up to speed :-)

But of course that doesn't mean that tricycle pilots ARE sloppy

Certainly not! Just the tricycle plane would tolerate it better if they were!

I think a tricycle tolerates poor landing techniques generally better... but there's a limit!

In an ideal world they'd all be built like a C152 - i've seen a landing on the nosewheel and it didn't bother it in the slightest - looked horrific though! No aircraft likes to be landed whilst still pointing down.... !

In reality tricycles, especially retractables, have delicate nosewheels. My tecnam looks very dainty. However, the pilot only needs to land in the very slightest of nose-up attitudes, or even on all three points works - whereas a taildragger needs to consciously bleed the speed off right to the stall at which point it lands on the three points ... or needs to do a wheeler landing which requires holding the tail up. Either way, the concept of just 'driving onto the runway' doesn't work on the taildragger.

So... tricycles are more forgiving generally, but taildraggers generally have stronger gear. However, i've seen some broken taildragger gear following a groundloop. Also some bent wing tips... nasty. There are taildragger pilots who have ground looped, and those pilots that will soon!

Anyone who wants to get into details on handling differences should have a look at "Stick and Rudder" (Wolfgang Langewiesche), and mabye "See How It Flies" (http://www.av8n.com/how/htm/) - both highly recommended reading anyways!

When touching down, there is a very simple difference between taildragger and tricycle: when the taildragger touches the ground with main wheels first, the tail lowers a bit (depending on your lift and vertical speed at touchdown), which means the AOA increases, which means lift increases - voila, you're up in the air again (somewhat high and slow, in the worst case). On a tricycle, when the main wheels touch first the nose lowers a bit, which means the AOA decreases (and so does lift) - meaning the airplane tends to remain happily on the ground compared to the first case. So you need to get landing speed and attitude 'more right' in the taildragger, to avoid hopping about all over the runway on touchdown.

When handling on the ground, the very simple difference is: taildragger has the COG behind the main gear, which means that the plane would like to porpoise if you let it (COG wants to move ahead of the main gear which enforces directional stability when taxiing) - if you want to try this yourself get a little matchbox car (or whatever the make is those days), and tape the rear wheels stuck, then push it along a tabletop or something: the car will turn around so the free wheels face to the rear if you've done it correctly. This is also why you should really want the rear wheels in you car to have more sideways grip than the front ones, if given a choice and going for directional stability (understeer). On the tricyle its the opposite - COG in front of the main gear "as it should be", plane rolls straight with no complaints.

I guess most of you probably already knew that... ;-)