Pitbull

[Jean Claude]

Thank you Karl
My son had a small plane biplane in tandem (MIGNET HM293) heavy tails, and tendency of the loop tail. After installing rear wheel locked and provided an opening angle of the front wheels, now it is stable. Taxiiing with differentials brakes.
David, i have never driving a forklift truck. But it will always be unstable because the front wheels are more rigid (authority) than the rear wheels.

[Not Yet]

Ranger

It makes no difference whether or not the tail wheel has high or low authority, when the center of gravity is behind the main gear, there is a strong tendency to over steer.

[karlbamforth]

You are quite correct David but what Francois is getting at is that if the tail wheel is free to rotate or with little weight on it so it can skip sideways, it will oversteer easily.

If the tailwheel is locked or has a high breakout force with weight to make it grip the runway surface it will not over steer so easily.

I am much better at explaining things face to face. LOL

If the tailwheel is light so that it has low grip and can skid sideways or casters it can easily over steer.

If it is locked and (relatively) heavy it will have a lot of grip and resist sideways movement.

He has also pointed out that if the maingear has toe out it will also resist swapping ends.

[John Stahl]

I am beginning to believe that rotor management is much more critical with tail draggers that trikes.

If you do not have rotor perfectly level the rotor will pull you to the side.
I think keeping more back stick and keeping the wheel on the ground is important.

I know we will be taking off behind the curve so once we get in the air we need to stay low tell we catch up with the curve.

[Joe_Terminella]

Hi Folks .
I have not flown a tractor taildragger but I have built my own design and taxied for many hours. A guy named Ron Herron who has been around for a long time has already done the hard work for us. If you are interested in tractors ........buy his plans and study them. The tractor does not have any tendencies to ground loop when designed properly. Unlike a taildragger airplane , the ground speed is relatively low.......once you bring on the power the rudder takes over from the wheel and when designed properly it is very controllable. I would not be afraid of the taildragger...........however, you can not expect to hop in and fly away without training. I have over 300 hours in Bensens design and another 300 hours in Taylorcraft F-22 taildragger.
So ........what I am saying is get trained and fly your taildraggers without much problem of ground looping.