taildragger toe-in vs toe-out AGAIN

Andrew Rowley wrote:

Darrol Stinton in "The Design of the Aeroplane" (excellent book) clearly
states that taildraggers should be set up at 0 deg or some toe out.
NEVER toe in.

A previous comment mentioned that the Pitts factory set their a/c up
with toe in. Given than all Pitts a/c have an evil repution on the
ground (and that mine is now excellent with this one change) do you
think that this is good thing?

Regards

Martin Morgan
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Plain or plane truth....

No matter how much testimony is given from those
of us with multiple decades and thousands of hours
of success, there remains that ever present vocal
minority which only finds solace in opposition. They
can be convinced of nothing. For these tortured
souls, the wheel MUST be reinvented and history
MUST be repeated.... usually by somebody else
that they will never believe, either.

Who are you accusing of reinventing the wheel? The Pitts factory, or
the person who improved the landings by removing the toe in?
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Sorry for not being clear to all, but...
The RAH vocal minority does *NOT* include:

Darrol Stinton
Pitts factory
Martin Morgan

FWIW..
I've no idea what the Pitt's uses,
but my RV-3 is short coupled
and tracks straight as an arrow...
with a tad of TOE OUT.

My Fly Baby of the '60's had ZERO...
and was a ground handling dream.

FWIW--
Most of my 50 years of successful flight is in taildraggers.
With no ground loop experience, I am no expert, so...

Who here has a ton of ground looping in their log book?
The details of your experiences are welcome here as
fodder for the 'great toe in - toe out debate'. )


Barnyard BOb - senior member of the NO TOE IN CLUB

On my recent homebuilt I started with 5/16" toe out. I did find one
improvement with decreasing the amount of toe out back to zero. Steering
is more responsive. Landing seems to be about the same. (No violent
nature)

On Fri, 14 Nov 2003 10:07:59 -0800, Joa wrote:

OK, I've researched this a fair bit and am still hearing two definite
different views. One one hand you have those that swear you need
toe-out and then on the other you have (among others- these are the
few I'm certain about) Cessna 100 series, Huskies, and Pitt's that all
are set with slight toe-in by the factory. Granted these are set
without weight on the aircraft and the toe-in may change slightly when
under load.

I think it boils down to what wins when you start to go into a turn
with a taildragger- does the toed-in outside wheel "drag" and thus
want to straighten you back out or does the toed-out outside wheel get
weight transferred to it and tend to straighten you out (vs tightening
the turn)?

Anybody with some definite answers based on physics? There's lots of
emperical and experiential opinions out there, anybody with some more
factual answers to the argument?

J oa

Toe in vs Toe out depends on the type of gear you have your wheels
connected to. This is the absolute first thing to consider before even
thinking about setting toe. If your gear is articulated you
need neutral or toe-in. Why? Because the gear legs will be forced apart
with toe out and the plane will start to sink on its gear. And it will
happen as you push it out of the hanger. It takes very little to get the
gear legs to spread if there is toe out. The rate at which it will sink
depends on the amount of toe out. So if you have bungees or
springs on some sort of A arm gear legs please don't use any toe-out.


If you have fixed gear like a one piece steel or aluminum unit then you
can consider all these other posts about how it should be set.

Mike

On Fri, 28 Nov 2003 17:21:21 GMT, Mr Nobody
wrote:

J oa

Toe in vs Toe out depends on the type of gear you have your wheels
connected to. This is the absolute first thing to consider before even
thinking about setting toe. If your gear is articulated you
need neutral or toe-in. Why? Because the gear legs will be forced apart
with toe out and the plane will start to sink on its gear. And it will
happen as you push it out of the hanger. It takes very little to get the
gear legs to spread if there is toe out. The rate at which it will sink
depends on the amount of toe out. So if you have bungees or
springs on some sort of A arm gear legs please don't use any toe-out.


I'll take issue here.
Your plane is so light the wheels will "scuff" long before they squat
the suspension enough to affect anything. Particularly when talking
only a few degrees of toe-out.
Now, if you were putting thousands of miles on the plane on the ground
tire wear would possibly become an issue, but you FLY the thing.
If you have fixed gear like a one piece steel or aluminum unit then you
can consider all these other posts about how it should be set.

Mike

One other thing to consider (and I can't help but wonder if it makes a greater
difference than initial toe in or out setting) is the angle (camber) of the
tire as it sits on the ground. The camber obviously changes with the weight on
the gear at any time. The problem is the bias ply tires that are on light
aircraft. They normally tend to want to steer toward the way they are leaning
as slight as that may be. Inflation could also effect this tendency.

Jim