A aviation & planes forum. AviationBanter

If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking the link above. You may have to register before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

Go Back   Home » AviationBanter forum » rec.aviation newsgroups » Home Built
Site Map Home Register Authors List Search Today's Posts Mark Forums Read Web Partners

Toe in or toe out?? For Taildraggers



 
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
  #1  
Old November 15th 06, 06:22 PM posted to rec.aviation.homebuilt
DonMorrisey
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 43
Default Toe in or toe out?? For Taildraggers

Howdy.

I'm at the point in my project where I'm lining up the landing gear.
Based on what I've found from various sources there seems to be many
schools of thought asto whether the main gear on a taildragger should
toe in or out and how much????

Thought I'd throw it out here to see what the brain trust has to say on
this topic. Thanks. Don....

  #2  
Old November 15th 06, 06:32 PM posted to rec.aviation.homebuilt
DonMorrisey
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 43
Default Toe in or toe out?? For Taildraggers



Thought I'd throw it out here to see what the brain trust has to say on
this topic. Thanks. Don..


OK,
Guess I should have checked the archives first. Now that I have...it
seems Toe Out is the condition I want, however ther was not a lot of
info on "how much". Any thoughts on that? thanks. Don....

  #3  
Old November 15th 06, 10:22 PM posted to rec.aviation.homebuilt
Morgans[_2_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 3,924
Default Toe in or toe out?? For Taildraggers


"DonMorrisey" wrote in message
ups.com...


Thought I'd throw it out here to see what the brain trust has to say on
this topic. Thanks. Don..


OK,
Guess I should have checked the archives first. Now that I have...it
seems Toe Out is the condition I want, however ther was not a lot of
info on "how much". Any thoughts on that? thanks. Don....

Just enough to barely measure it. Like one or two degrees.

You are really just insuring that there will not be any toe in.
--
Jim in NC


  #4  
Old November 16th 06, 12:10 AM posted to rec.aviation.homebuilt
Jarhead
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 18
Default Toe in or toe out?? For Taildraggers


"DonMorrisey" wrote in message
oups.com...
| Howdy.
|
| I'm at the point in my project where I'm lining up the landing gear.
| Based on what I've found from various sources there seems to be many
| schools of thought asto whether the main gear on a taildragger should
| toe in or out and how much????
|
| Thought I'd throw it out here to see what the brain trust has to say
on
| this topic. Thanks. Don....
|

I know you have gotten responses supporting toe out on the main gear
which is just the opposite of what I was told by a Cessna A&P some years
ago.

His explanation, as I remember it, is that a slight amount of toe in is
desirable because as the aiplane started to groundloop, say to the left,
the left wheel would be more in line with forward motion and the right
wheel would be causing drag by the sideways scuffing action. Toe out
would reverse the above which would contribute to the loss of control.

Here is a 1948 Cessna service letter supporting toe in from the factory:
http://www.cessna120-140.org/Library..._Cessna_56.htm

--
Jarhead



----== Posted via Newsfeeds.Com - Unlimited-Unrestricted-Secure Usenet News==----
http://www.newsfeeds.com The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World! 120,000+ Newsgroups
----= East and West-Coast Server Farms - Total Privacy via Encryption =----
  #5  
Old November 16th 06, 04:49 AM posted to rec.aviation.homebuilt
J.Kahn
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 120
Default Toe in or toe out?? For Taildraggers

Jarhead wrote:
"DonMorrisey" wrote in message
oups.com...
| Howdy.
|
| I'm at the point in my project where I'm lining up the landing gear.
| Based on what I've found from various sources there seems to be many
| schools of thought asto whether the main gear on a taildragger should
| toe in or out and how much????
|
| Thought I'd throw it out here to see what the brain trust has to say
on
| this topic. Thanks. Don....
|

I know you have gotten responses supporting toe out on the main gear
which is just the opposite of what I was told by a Cessna A&P some years
ago.

His explanation, as I remember it, is that a slight amount of toe in is
desirable because as the aiplane started to groundloop, say to the left,
the left wheel would be more in line with forward motion and the right
wheel would be causing drag by the sideways scuffing action. Toe out
would reverse the above which would contribute to the loss of control.

Here is a 1948 Cessna service letter supporting toe in from the factory:
http://www.cessna120-140.org/Library..._Cessna_56.htm



I agree with the toe out crowd. Toe in results, in a swing, in the
wheel with the most weight on it, the one on the outboard side of a
turn, getting most of the bite which tends to tighten the turn thereby
creating a certain amount of directional instability. Toe out has a
small "crosswind gear" effect. There, the wheel on the outboard side of
the turn, as it gets the majority of traction due to weight transfer,
tends to steer the airplane out of the turn.

Tony Bengalis talked about this and the number of tail dragger
homebuilts that were sold by their builders due to squirrely behavior
because the owner put toe in.

In the Cessna SL they are concerned with tire wear and their goal is to
get neutral toe in while rolling to maximize tire life. I think that
they calculate that the rolling drag pulling back on the tires tends to
twist them in a toe out direction normally and therefore a slight amount
of toe in is set which is removed as the airplane rolls so the wheels
are more or less neutral.

Although the goal generally seems to be to achieve neutral wheel
alignment, I think a small amount of toe out is desirable on more short
coupled aircraft that need all the stabilizing help they can get.

John K
  #6  
Old November 16th 06, 06:34 AM posted to rec.aviation.homebuilt
Alan Baker
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 244
Default Toe in or toe out?? For Taildraggers

In article ,
"Jarhead" wrote:

"DonMorrisey" wrote in message
oups.com...
| Howdy.
|
| I'm at the point in my project where I'm lining up the landing gear.
| Based on what I've found from various sources there seems to be many
| schools of thought asto whether the main gear on a taildragger should
| toe in or out and how much????
|
| Thought I'd throw it out here to see what the brain trust has to say
on
| this topic. Thanks. Don....
|

I know you have gotten responses supporting toe out on the main gear
which is just the opposite of what I was told by a Cessna A&P some years
ago.

His explanation, as I remember it, is that a slight amount of toe in is
desirable because as the aiplane started to groundloop, say to the left,
the left wheel would be more in line with forward motion and the right
wheel would be causing drag by the sideways scuffing action. Toe out
would reverse the above which would contribute to the loss of control.

Here is a 1948 Cessna service letter supporting toe in from the factory:
http://www.cessna120-140.org/Library..._Cessna_56.htm


As someone who's read quite a lot on (land) vehicle dynamics, I don't
see how that can hold water. Frankly, I don't think either is going to
make a whole lot of difference, but with toe-in, all you'll do is have
the outside wheel at an increase steering angle just as dynamic weight
transfer adds downward load onto it. That will give it more "bite" to
create even more force, etc, etc.

If I were to guess (and that's all this is: relatively educated
guessing) I'd have the wheels toe-out, so that as the weight is
transferred due to any initial deviation, it is transferred away from
the wheel running at the higher steering angle.

--
'It is Mac OS X, not BSD.' -- 'From Mac OS to BSD Unix.'
"It's BSD Unix with Apple's APIs and GUI on top of it' -- 'nothing but BSD Unix'
(Edwin on Mac OS X)
'[The IBM PC] could boot multiple OS, such as DOS, C/PM, GEM, etc.' --
'I claimed nothing about GEM other than it was available software for the
IBM PC. (Edwin on GEM)
'Solaris is just a marketing rename of Sun OS.' -- 'Sun OS is not included
on the timeline of Solaris because it's a different OS.' (Edwin on Sun)
  #7  
Old November 16th 06, 07:12 AM posted to rec.aviation.homebuilt
Ed Sullivan
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 69
Default Toe in or toe out?? For Taildraggers

On 15 Nov 2006 09:22:13 -0800, "DonMorrisey"
wrote:

Howdy.

I'm at the point in my project where I'm lining up the landing gear.
Based on what I've found from various sources there seems to be many
schools of thought asto whether the main gear on a taildragger should
toe in or out and how much????

Thought I'd throw it out here to see what the brain trust has to say on
this topic. Thanks. Don....


As one who has experienced both conditions on a Baby Lakes and a
Jungster two I can definitely state that you dont want toe in. If you
dont believe me....try it.

Ed Sullivan
  #8  
Old November 16th 06, 05:57 PM posted to rec.aviation.homebuilt
clare at snyder.on.ca
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 121
Default Toe in or toe out?? For Taildraggers

On Thu, 16 Nov 2006 06:12:55 GMT, Ed Sullivan
wrote:

On 15 Nov 2006 09:22:13 -0800, "DonMorrisey"
wrote:

Howdy.

I'm at the point in my project where I'm lining up the landing gear.
Based on what I've found from various sources there seems to be many
schools of thought asto whether the main gear on a taildragger should
toe in or out and how much????

Thought I'd throw it out here to see what the brain trust has to say on
this topic. Thanks. Don....


As one who has experienced both conditions on a Baby Lakes and a
Jungster two I can definitely state that you dont want toe in. If you
dont believe me....try it.

Ed Sullivan



I've always been of the opinion that a bit of toe out would mitigate
ground looping somewhat. Toe in can , in my opinion, definitely
contribute to the tendancy to ground-loop.

--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

  #9  
Old November 16th 06, 11:24 PM posted to rec.aviation.homebuilt
[email protected]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,130
Default Toe in or toe out?? For Taildraggers


There have been a lot of arguments on this issue. The airplanes I've
had trouble with were usually toed-in, or had uneven alignment (one
wheel toed-out, one straight). Cessna and American Champion, among
other manufacturers, will ask for zero toe-in or out.
The RC modeler crowd seem to favor the toe-in outside wheel
scuffing drag theory, but they're operating mostly off grass and have
no idea how an airplane "feels" with toe-in or out. They spend most of
their early hours groundlooping no matter what the alignment. The RC
flying I've done just tells me that it's a lot harder than sitting in
the real thing and flying it.
The toe-in, seems to me, would be counterproductive anyway,
since the inside wheel in a groundloop has little or no weight on it,
and the outside wheel will have more say as to where the nose is going.
I'd align the wheels straight as best as I can, and tolerate a tiny bit
of toe-out, if anything.

Dan

 




Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

vB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Forum Jump


All times are GMT +1. The time now is 09:49 AM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.6.4
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Copyright ©2004-2024 AviationBanter.
The comments are property of their posters.