tricycle undercarriage

"G. Stewart" wrote:

Thanks for the answers.

I was off on the dates for the shift to tricycle undercarriage
dominance ... sorry.

I guess what I was asking was - when the designers of the Spitfire, or
the FW-190, or the Mustang, etc. sat down to consider the
undercarriage part, why did they go with the taildragger design
instead of the tricycle design, when the latter offered so much more
visibility on the ground, and which seems to be the design of most
modern aircraft today?

Just think about it for a second..........

Taking each of those 3 types you mention - where would you put the
nosewheel ??

You would have to provide space underneath the engine.

Then, raising the tail would cause the prop to touch the ground.

So you would then have to lengthen the main gear legs to raise the whole
a/c (and move them back to maintain cg).

I suppose one solution would be to put the 'nosewheel' BEHIND the
mainwheels - into the lower fuselage behind the wing (or radiator in the
case of the P-51!).

You would still have to lengthen the mainlegs - but you could then make
the fuselage datum parallel to the ground.

Would such a scheme work - a 'reverse' tricycle undercarriage ??

I have a mental picture of just such an arrangement - but I can't think of
the a/c it was on ??

And would a reverse-tricycle undercarriage have the same effect as a
'normal' one - in terms of flared landing, ground-looping etc ?

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ ++++++++++++++++
Ken Duffey - Flanker Freak & Russian Aviation Enthusiast
Flankers Website - http://www.flankers.co.uk/
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ ++++++++++++++++

On Thu, 27 Nov 2003 17:24:00 +0000, in rec.aviation.military Ken Duffey
wrote:

So you would then have to lengthen the main gear legs to raise the whole
a/c (and move them back to maintain cg).

Gull wings, a.k.a. F4U Corsair series.

In article ,
William Hughes writes:
On Thu, 27 Nov 2003 17:24:00 +0000, in rec.aviation.military Ken Duffey
wrote:

So you would then have to lengthen the main gear legs to raise the whole
a/c (and move them back to maintain cg).

Gull wings, a.k.a. F4U Corsair series.

A couple of points, he
1) A conventional gear isn't necessary for prop clearance. All
taildraggers have long enough landing gear that the prop will be some
acceptable distance from the ground when the tail is raised on
takeoff. I've yet to see a Mustang or Corsair take off in a 3-point
attitude. (You wouldn't be able to see the runway, and the rudder
would be blanketed, just when you need it to keep the pointy part
forward.

2) If the Corsair needed Gull Wings to get adequate prop clearance,
than howcomzit that the F6F Hellcat, with an identical propeller, (the
prope wer interchangable. F4Us flew with F6F props and vice versa) was
able to make do with a flat center-sectioned mid wing and landing gear
retracting into the wings? And, in the process, provide better takeoff
an landing behavior? I think that if you really look into it, the
reason for the Corsair's wing design was a desire to reduce
interference drag at teh wing/fuselage junction by making sure that
the wing met the fuselage at a right angle. The inverted gull shape
allowed this to be done without having to add a lot of fairings to the
joint.

--
Pete Stickney
A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many
bad measures. -- Daniel Webster

when the designers of the Spitfire, or
the FW-190, or the Mustang, etc. sat down to consider the
undercarriage part, why did they go with the taildragger design
instead of the tricycle design,

In addition to weight and cost, a very important factor in the first
two aircraft was the absence of any tradition of retractable tricycle
landing gear. By the time the Mustang came along, it had been proved
out in the P-39. But the P-39 was pretty much a dead end in aircraft
design (as someone pointed out, one reason there was room for a front
retractable landing gear was that the engine was in back, with all
sorts of consequences for the pilot cockpit, balance, etc.). So the
Mustang stayed true to the P-40 tradition, big liquid-cooled engine up
front, two retractable mains, and a small tail wheel.

all the best -- Dan Ford
email: (put CUB in subject line)

see the Warbird's Forum at www.warbirdforum.com
and the Piper Cub Forum at www.pipercubforum.com

why should
the tailhanger undercarriage design be inherently stronger than the
tricycle?

For the mains, no real difference. You do take some of the shock off
the mains with a taildragger if you make a stall-down landing, where a
bit of the weight is borne by the tail wheel. In a trike, you never
put weight on the nose wheel until the plane is rolling on the ground.

But it is certainly more difficult to build a strong nose gear than a
strong tail gear.


Do take-off/landing characteristics have anything to do with it? With
propeller aircraft, does the tailhanger design lend itself to easier
takeoffs and landings?

Quite the contrary. A trike is easier to taxi, easier and safer in the
takeoff, and very much easier and safer on landing. The major
exception would be rough-field landings, where a wheelie in a
taildragger is more likely to have a happy outcome. It is not
generally recognized that the tires on a J-3 Cub are low-rent "tundra
tires" -- they're soft, to absorb rocks and ruts in the fields that
were common when the plane was built.

The Hurricanes of RAF 17 Sq retreated from Rangoon in March 1942 to a
rough field some miles north of the city. Several had their tail
wheels torn off by rocks; they were replaced by bamboo skids.


all the best -- Dan Ford
email: (put CUB in subject line)

see the Warbird's Forum at www.warbirdforum.com
and the Piper Cub Forum at www.pipercubforum.com

Cub Driver wrote:

The major exception would be rough-field landings, where a
wheelie in a taildragger is more likely to have a happy outcome.

????

Having spent a few thousand hours flying in the Idaho and Montana
backcountry in both taildraggers and trikes including 206's and 210's, I
have to call BS on that one.

I will take a 210 into nearly any field that I would not think of wheel
landing a taildragger. For one thing, a wheel landing requires a higher
touchdown speed, imposes greater loads on the gear and airframe, and
burns up runway that may not be there to begin with on a rough field.

Try wheel-landing that cub on a field that is rough and sloped a few
degrees and you will trash it in a hurry.

A trike can be full stalled as well as a taildragger and in the case you
mentioned would nearly always come out the winner in that game over a
wheel landing. The ability to stand on the brakes without worrying about
a noseover also leads to a shorter rollout than a wheel-landing taildragger.

Rick

The Hurricanes of RAF 17 Sq retreated from Rangoon in March 1942 to a
rough field some miles north of the city. Several had their tail
wheels torn off by rocks; they were replaced by bamboo skids.

in which case, they became true taildraggers....

Ron
Pilot/Wildland Firefighter