Old 01-10-2019, 09:04 AM
  #10  
sailingfun
Gets Weekends Off
 
Joined APC: Feb 2008
Posts: 19,273
Default

I gather when you got your tailwheel endorsement you did not get much of a groundschool. Tailwheel aircraft behave very different from nosewheel aircraft on the ground. The main reason is the placement of the main gear relative to the Center of mass. It’s basic physics. A secondary issue is weight on the third wheel. A tertiary issue is a tailwheel aircraft generates lift in its normal ground attitude putting less overall weight on all the gear.
Visibility is good in most tailwheel aircraft if doing a wheel landing however in some tailwheel aircraft wheel landings are not recommended or even prohibited due to prop diameter and or type of main gear construction. A Pitts is a good example. 3 point landings are also mandated on short fields and a pilot is required to be proficient in both types to get a tailwheel endorsement.
The last point is the most salient. There are several types of aircraft that can be conventional or nosewheel depending on how it’s ordered or built. You will always pay more in insurance for the conventional gear aircraft because despite being generally flown by more experienced pilots the accident rate for landings and takeoffs is substantially higher with the tailwheel.

Here is a simplified primer on tailwheel aircraft.
On the ground, tailwheel aircraft are naturally unstable because the center of gravity is located aft of the main landing gear. Ever tried to push a tricycle backward? With the slightest turn, the tricycle wants to veer to one side or the other, or spin. That’s how a tailwheel behaves moving forward.

“The important thing with the tailwheel is that you have to keep the nose straight, so the airplane has to be pointed in the same direction that it’s going,” Rapp explained. That’s easier said than done. “Anytime a divergence starts to develop between those two things, you’re going to see that ground looping tendency.” The key to correct drifting off center on the runway or taxiway without ground looping is to stop the drift before bringing the aircraft back to the desired position. Holding the rudder too long or swerving could set you up for a ground loop.
sailingfun is offline