Taxiing a Taildragger In a Crosswind

[Colonel]

I won't tell you what to do with the ailerons - that's obvious.

But people who tell you to always put the elevator forward
with a tailwind, aren't exactly always correct.

Hint:  Put your hand out the window.  If you're feeling air
moving back, stick back and elevator up.  What you're interested
in, is net airflow over the tail feathers, which is probably pretty
much the same as what's going past your window.

Net airflow over the tail feathers is a sum of the wind, slipstream
and taxi speed, just to be pedantic.  That is not always negative
with a tailwind, despite what some people say.

[JW Scud]

[quote author=Colonel Sanders link=topic=9525.msg27057#msg27057 date=1551934534]
I won't tell you what to do with the ailerons - that's obvious.

But people who tell you to always put the elevator forward
with a tailwind, aren't exactly always correct.

Hint:  Put your hand out the window.  If you're feeling air
moving back, stick back and elevator up.  What you're interested
in, is net airflow over the tail feathers, which is probably pretty
much the same as what's going past your window.

Net airflow over the tail feathers is a sum of the wind, slipstream
and taxi speed, just to be pedantic.  That is not always negative
with a tailwind, despite what some people say.
[/quote]

Good info, but is the airflow over the tail feathers really pretty much the same as what is going by the window? The tail can be quite far back from where the pilot is.

[Colonel]

Some pieces of yarn, taped in a vertical row at the aft of the vertical fin,
would probably tell the story.

I would be very surprised to see them pointed forward, with any forward taxi speed
or any power.  Most people taxi with too much power anyways, riding the brakes.

As usual, data triumphs.  We need more data.

[cgzro]

> Hint:  Put your hand out the window.

Nice .. what a great practical hint.  I always just kind of experimented a bit to see if there is a reversal in the slight motion the tail gives to stick motion.

[Colonel]

Not sure anyone cares, but gyroscopic precession (from yaw rate) picks
up the tail for me in taildraggers, and is a lot scarier than a little tailwind.

This is especially true with a long, metal blade prop.  The poster child for
this is the R-985 Stearman conversion, which has a HUGE 2-blade metal
prop.  And just for fun, the elevator with full aft stick is barely in line with
the fuselage.

Yawing right, I have had the tail come up on me in the Stearman - why is
that?

When making smoke in a circle, I always yaw left.  Why?

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Ask Pete McLeod about this sometime  >:D

Funny how pilots like to prattle on about all sorts of nonsense with
taildraggers, and they never, ever pay any attention to a terribly
important ground handling characteristic, which is pitch-yaw coupling
caused by heavy prop blades with considerable polar moment of inertia.

This is no surprise - the equation is the integral of radius [u]SQUARED[/u]
dm.  Ask any TC Inspector to write the equation on the board and explain
it to you.

For example, there are precisely three things that you need to know, to
fly the Beech 18 (this information is guarded by the pilot community like
the crown jewels - you will find it nowhere, I had to figure it out myself
when I checked myself out in it):

1) Lock the tailwheel
2) Have a good left brake
3) Raise and lower the tail [i]slowly[/i]

You can massively reduce the probability of a taildragger having a ground
accident by installing a wooden prop.  Why is that? 

In addition, if you have an accident the wood is
sacrifical, and you will make 10,000 toothpicks
and the engine won't be hurt, as it will be if you
have a metal prop.

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No one gives a shit about any of this, of course, despite
the fact that it's really old news.  The physics hasn't changed
since my grandfather and his brother flew taildraggers in WWI,
over 100 years ago.

PS  Re-torque the hardware holding the wooden prop to the
crankshaft every now and then.  Like George Costanza, wood
suffers from shrinkage.

[Colonel]

PS  When you are first starting out flying taildraggers, I might suggest
that at first you avoid quartering tailwinds when landing.

However, after some practice, you should really stop giving a shit.

People (TC Inspectors, Airline pilots) tell me I'm not much of a pilot
compared to them, and I used to take a 20 knot tailwind in a Pitts
S-2C on a 10,000 foot runway in Central America during a head-on
takeoff to start the show, so you should be able to easily do better
than a shitty old pilot like me.

[img width=414 height=500][/img]

The pilot, not the aircraft, is the limiting factor.  Think about that.

[Liquid Charlie]

I will touch on ailerons and ironically I use them in the same manor on wheels (conventional gear)  as I do on floats. With a quartering tailwind up aileron down to assist in the taxi and help compensate weather cocking. Also turning down wind I drop the aileron as the turn goes into a quartering tailwind. Yes sailing on the ground. Old aircraft with old style wings and controls you can actually control aircraft direction with ailerons during take off so my advice think about all your controls and as pointed out but the Colonel, always be aware of airflow direction during taxi, it can be coming from several directions.