Rob Schmitt wrote: >You need the brakes on take off since you have no rudder control till you >get up some speed.
Another benefit of the taildragger (to start a small brushfire)...tailwheel angle and rudder angle are automatically "close" to the same, so a little tailwheel compensates for crosswind on takeoff, and then the rudder seamlessly takes over as the tail comes up (assuming the ratio between the two is set up somewhat correctly). Of course if the KR nose wheel were steerable, I couldn't make that argument...so perhaps a moot point, but with steerable nose wheel comes some complexity, as there's a lot more weight on a nose wheel than a tail wheel. The only reason I know this is because I never noticed I didn't have directional control until the rudder takes over, because the tailwheel was doing that instead. Having said that, I'll be the first to confess that when the going gets tough, you'd want a gear setup that is inherently stable, rather than inherently UNstable...not going to win that argument. And if nothing else, insurance is cheaper for tri-gear... Mark Langford ML at N56ML.com website at http://www.N56ML.com --------------------------------------------------------
