Some tailwheel questions/comments

On 25 Sep, 19:03, "BDS" wrote:
"Bertie the Bunyip" wrote

One piece of advice I can give that's useful to new talidragger pilots,
or at least I've found it so, is to get religious about aving the
controls in the right position when taxiing in wind. Any wind at all.
Even three knots. For one thing, having the ailerons in particualr,
plcaed correctly, you increase your control of the airplane
dramatically. Being in the habit of doing this wil give you the edge you
need it during crosswind landings. It's habits that come to the
forefront when your brain degenerates to it's primevel state when things
start happening quickly.

Good advice. It's easy to get complacent about control positioning while
taxiing, and I know what you mean about the difference in control when
they're in the right position. You can definitely feel the difference.

BTW, when taxiing with a tailwind you need to reverse, as yo know. Don't
forget to consider the taxi speed of your airplane in relation to the
wind. Elevators are tricky in this situation. If you got a roaring
tailwind, you need to have them forward (Careful with the power here or
you could have an instant headwind as far as your elevators are
concerned) It can be hard to tell if you need the elevators up or down
when you're taxing downwind, but th erule I use is if you can feel the
stick "click" as the wind passes ovr the elavotrs as you move them up
and down you should have them down. Make sense?

I'll have to try that rule of thumb next time but it sounds like what you're
saying is that if you can feel the wind pushing on the elevator as it moves
through neutral then it should be down. I've been taxiing with the elevator
full forward in all tailwind conditions up to this point, and that's
probably not a good habit to get into, especially when moving into something
with more power.

BDS

Yes, sounds like you got the idea. An awful lot of airplanes end up on
their nose (particularly Supercubs for some reason) because the pilot
turns downwind quickley using a bit of brake at the same time.

Bertie

On Sep 25, 3:11 pm, Bertie the Bunyip
wrote:

Yes, sounds like you got the idea. An awful lot of airplanes end up on
their nose (particularly Supercubs for some reason) because the pilot
turns downwind quickley using a bit of brake at the same time.

Bertie

Some quick ways to get a taildragger up on its nose:
-Using lots of brake in the rollout without using elevator to maintain
attitude. And holding the brakes on hard even when the speed is gone.
-Taxiing too fast downwind and either losing control (no airflow over
the surfaces; got to fly a taildragger all the time, remember?) and
initiating a groundloop, or turning too quickly out of a tailwind. The
wind against the side of the fuselage, under the upwind wing and under
the stab combines with centrifugal force to lift a wheel, whereupon
the downwind wing drags on the surface, and now that more wind can get
at the wing and stab, there's more lift, the tail comes up, and
inertia through the CG and against the dragging wing does the rest.
-With CG forward (nobody in the back), doing a runup without holding
the elevator back will lift the tail of many taildraggers. As the tail
comes up, the angle between the CG and the locked mains decreases so
that the tail gets even lighter, and over she goes. Happens if the
pilot has his head in the cockpit and isn't paying attention to what's
going on outside. Can happen, too, if the pilot is trying to taxi
through deep snow or gooey mud.

Dan