Taildraggers remain a popular configuration for small aircraft, but they come with a significant risk during ground handling: ground loops. If the tail gets too far off course, it can swing around completely, often damaging or destroying aircraft if a wing hits the ground. Avoiding ground loops requires good rudder and brake control, and there currently isn’t a good way to learn it without getting into an actual aircraft. [Trent Palmer] is a pilot and who has been thinking about this problem for a few years, so he built a 3-wheeled electric go-cart to help pilots train their ground handling.
The cart is controlled exactly like a taildragger, with a pair of rudder pedals connected to the single steerable via cables, and springs to add some response delay. Independent hydraulic brakes on each main wheel, operated by toe pedals, further simulate the control on many aircraft. The main wheel are controlled with a throttle lever, with a differential to allow them to rotate at different speeds. The cart is unforgiving, and requires constant corrections with the pedals to keep it going straight.[Trent] had few pilot and non-pilot friends try out the cart, and even the experienced tailwheel pilots got into ground loop. It might be bit too sensitive, but everyone agreed that mastering this cart would significantly improve ground handling skills in actual aircraft.
Repairing a damaged aircraft can cost several thousand dollar, so a cheap training tool like this could prove invaluable flight schools and even individual pilots. [Trent] doesn’t have big plans for commercialization, but we wouldn’t be surprised if it goes that way.
Taildraggers are especially popular as bush planes, with many tracing their heritage from the humble Piper J-3 Cub. We’ve seen some extreme extreme modern bush planes, like [Mike Patey]’s Scrappy and Draco builds.
Not being a pilot I never thought of this before but once you think about it that is a damn good idea.
Fantastic! I for one would love to see this in kit form or as plans!
I agree. I would love to build one.
You just need to block the forward view now, like in a real tail dragger!
“Repairing a damaged aircraft can cost several thousand dollars..”
LOL even for a minor repair to a wing or airframe you are off by an order of magnitude.
In aviation, at least the crowd I’m used to, the vast majority of pilots are very un-rich and flying is their lifestyle. Then, sure, there are the wealthy but they are pretty few and far between. Again, just one guy’s experience though.
An airplane is a hole in the air lined with a hull into which you pour money, to steal from the boat people.
Critique: since i had a 50 pacer taildragger, and ground looped once just to do it and get over with, i was wondering if the training cart has sufficient mass aft of the CG or COP such that it will swing wildly uncommanded, the same as my plane at speeds slower than full rudder authority.
Excellent idea, I first heard of this in French flight school refered to as a penguin. WW1
Ground loops can cause wrecks in electronic circuits as well!
B^)
Lol yes! When I was training in a taildragger and first heard someone say about a ground loop destroying a plane, I was trying to push my brain to understand how something that might cause radio interference would wreck an entire plane!
Not seeing where this actually works for training. Had a Alaskan ’50 Pacer and it had a tendency towards accelerated swapping ends in a heart beat if you weren’t paying constant attention. The cart needs effective rudder for those inbetween speeds that the brakes will make things worse. Looks like fun from the video, but having fun wont suffice to the FAA inspector after the incident.
Design of aircraft invokes many fascinating engineering trade offs. Super fun from an intellectual point of view. Less fun is you in the cockpit and choice is bravado and radness vs one tiny human slip up and you are ground looped upside down under a pile of extra flammable fuel and maybe burning to death.
For me the choice is clear. Your mileage may vary.
FWIW I fly gliders sooooooo. Also a lot of trade offs but no fuel to burn me alive.
Seems like you could add a gyro stabilizer servo setup to effectively get DWIM (do-what-I-mean) control, just like for RC helicopters and cars. With some clever design, you could probably have it be a manual+assist control rather than fully steer-by-wire.
You have to push the stick forward in tail draggers, then pull back, correct?
It’s super complicated. Air over the stabilizer and rudder is what matters but the throttle (which … does its own stuff obv) also blows air over the stab and rudder. So airspeed plus what you’re doing with throttle combine in an easy to intuine manner after many hours but in a crazy otherwise way. So the controls are super intertwined. Like a heli. Second nature once you get over it but maybe fatal till then. Good times.
HaD was doing great for more than a whole month!
But, I guess we are back to needing to CONSTANTLY call you out for not bothering to check spelling, grammar, or if you left half of an old sentence there when you changed it for a new one.
Three paragraphs in this article, yet I had to go back and reread several sentences after my brain threw an input error.
More than half of the articles I read in the last week had something obvious wrong with them.
Have you fe had a teacher tell the class that “some” students obviously didn’t go back and read their assignment before turning it in?
Yeah. It’s super obvious when someone doesn’t bother to proof read something…