Why not the "Belt and Suspenders" approach? Tie both ends down.
Stu Fields (Helicopters have problem with just tying down the rear blade)
"Icebound" wrote in message
news
Does anybody know of any wind-tunnel tests for analysis of tie-down
behaviour? I tried a google search without much success.

Having seen the Charley pictures from Orlando Executive and Punta Gorda,
I'm
wondering if we are doing the right thing.

The standard for tricycle gear GA planes seems to be wings and tail.

Having been to my own airport, I can see that most of the tail ropes are
usually the rattiest you can find.
Besides, even if the tail tiedown holds, it does nothing to prevent the
A/C
rotating on the main gear and bouncing onto the tail and back onto the
nose
gear until one or the other gives way.

I am also wondering that even if the tail tiedown stays tight, do the
forces
become great enough such that the fuse breaks at its weakest point,
somewhere just in front of the tail feathers?

Thus I wonder if leaving the tail loose, and tieing down at the nose gear
would make more sense. I don't see this as putting more pressure on the
wing-tiedowns because I feel that a tied-down tail would have given way
anyway, long before the wings reach any sort of critical point.

It would be interesting to have wind-tunnel tests (at various directions
to
the a/c longitudinal axis) to see the effects on different tie-down
methods.