Originally Posted by
Eric Janson
Don't agree with what D-OCHO has written.
There is plenty of airflow over the rudder with the engines running - the rudder is effective when taxiing the aircraft,
@Hotel Tango - the answer to your question is yes. The correct thing to do in this situation is to get the tailwheel off the ground ASAP.
Agreed. D-OCHO is right, however, to point out that the transition from tail down to tail up (and vice-versa) is when direction control is normally the most tricky on any tail-dragger, and the DC-3/C-47 is no exception. In this case, though, the tail seems to have been up only briefly, and by a small amount.
At a first reading, the captain's account seems to contradict the co-pilot's. But my GUESS is that the swing to the right that the co-pilot reports may have been relatively minor and that he may have over-corrected it, which would explain the captain's assertion that the a/c swung to the left. It is only too easy to over-correct a swing, sometimes even leading to PIO (pilot-induced oscillation). We've all done it, and it can be seen happening in the video I posted earlier, of a Dakota taking off on a wide grass airfield at White Waltham (England):
[scroll forward to time 12:22]
However, in the case of the Burnet accident, it seems that the swing to the left took the aircraft off the edge of the 75-foot-wide, paved runway before the captain could take control. Question remains; why was the take-off not aborted immediately?