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Old 28th Oct 2014, 17:12
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pattern_is_full
 
Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: Denver
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Well there are a whole lot of factors that play a role in high-power single-engine taildragger takeoffs.

Not just wind (weathervaning) itself, and perhaps this effect (sounds plausible - sort of like running into your own drifting wake turbulence vortex ). But also engine torque, gyroscopic precession (when raising the tail), p-factor, the regular prop vortex effects.

In the wind-tunnel, one can probably filter for just one of the variables and study it.

But in the real world, for a pilot, all that stuff is happening all at once - some effects reinforcing other effects, or neutralizing other effects. It is a constant juggling act with rudder and stick, not a "put the stick here and the rudder there, and hold them" situation.

In the really powerful ships like the P-51 and the Corsair, the practice was to NOT use full power, until one had built up enough speed for rudder effectiveness. Partial power, pick up speed, raise the tail (into the propstream) - and then bring the power (with all its side-effects) up to maximum.
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