Re: Tail dragger

The Kadet Senior, and models that have a rudder that totally resides above the elevator, are a bit of a PITA to outfit with a steerable tailwheel. It is much easier to accomplish by forgetting about attaching the tailwheel tiller arm to the rudder for steering and make it independent with its own pushrod. On a model that is the size of the Senior Kadet, it is also practical to use a separate servo too.
I used to get a piece of appropriately sized music wire (3/32" wire) and a good fitting piece of brass tubing. A wheel collar or soldered washer (my favorite) at the top can retain the wire within the tubing.
Do all of your bending before fiberglassing the tubing to the end of the fuselage with either Goldberg's nylon reinforcing tape or heavy fiberglass cloth. While epoxy is the best binder, thick CA works well.
Don't forget the load bearing washer or wheel collar at the bottom. Before thinking about glassing this to the end of the fuselage, make sure everything works smoothly and freely. Of course, you will have provided a small space below the washer for the small steering arm that you put on before soldering the washers in place.
There may be something available from Dubro or another parts provider that will save you all of this aggravation of home cobbling something up. Unfortunately, I am not familiar with such a product.
Me, I'd just go with the tricycle gear and do the conventional gear on my next model.
Ed Cregger

A very simple solution, just make it free castoring and you can still steer the plane quite well with rudder action from the prop blast.
Red S.

Did a simialr thing on a few Barnstormer (RPM models I think) models way back when, but bent up my own tailwheel wire to parallel the bottom edge of the rudder. I carved a slot into the bottom of the rudder and epoxied the wire into place.
Took a lot of abuse and completely de-ruddered the midwing .25 size model in the grass once.
Still have those things in my attic.. I should dig 'em out and see if they still fly...

free castoring ? So don't hook it to anything?

The only problem with free-castoring tailwheels is that they endow the aircraft with a fierce tendency to ground-loop. IMO a better idea would be to make a fixed tail skid (or just fix the tailwheel in the straight ahead position). It's surprising just how easy it is to steer on the ground even with a fixed skid/wheel on a taildragger and it goes a long way to tame any ground-loop/cartwheel tendencies.
Steve

It depends a lot on the surface you are flying from. Grass is much more tolerant, than a paved surface when it comes to ground-looping I have found. Power and rudder management become much more critical on a hard surface also. Ever watch a vintage tail dragger (full size) plane take off on a paved surface? They are dancing on the rudder until the tail lifts.
Red S.

You got it, or make it fixed - depending on the surface you are flying from, a fixed tail wheel will still allow you a fair amount of ground control with the rudder when flying from grass.
Red S.

OR you can bend the wire tall enough so that it will fit through a v cut in the LE of the elevator and long enough to fit into a peice of fuel tubing that is attached too the bottome of the rudder. Steering and shock absorbing done with one "free" item. Hopefully the 'drawing' will survive formating issues....
Fuel tubing here -------- | | Elevator here / mount plate here / / O

Actually a fixed tail wheel OR a fixed skid will work jut fine, and most likely far better than a castering tailwheel. Sime examples come to mind: The Proctor Jenny, Dave Platt's Bucker Jungmeister, and my own Predator. Of course for tight manuevering you have to use brief power bursts and rudder. And then we have the real DC-3 and others that lock the tailwheel for takeoff :-) Lyman Slack

Saw this thread just today. A friend of mine, an experienced builder, built a Kadet Senior as a taildragger. The thing came out very tail heavy. He wound up with the servos as far forward as he could get them. Likewise, the battery had to be right behind the firewall and this was with a an old ST .56 for power.
I put together one of the ARF versions last year. With a Tower .46 and 6 Hitec HS-45 servos in the kit location, I had to add ballast to the nose to make it balance. My advice it to build it as a trike gear airplane and plan to put everything as far forward as you can get it.
CR

Kadet Seniors tend to be tailheavy with a .40 sized engine. He should have mounted the servos up front. I have one with the servos mounted just behind the CG, I have a K&B .40 on it and about 8 ounces of solder in the nose.

That oughtta do

Sorry I've been offline for a bit. This idea looks like it might be a possibility. I'll have to see how all this lines up on my Kadet Senior before I know. Thanks for the info and idea's. ME

I've got a O.S. 46LA and my servos are mounted in the front area above the battery so that should be close. ME

Yes, I've found this was the case also. I'm not locked into tail dragger yet so I can always go with the tricycle gear. I have a 60 Size Corsair, old C-Ray I'm putting a new tail on so I can use them as my "tail dragger".
I'm really wanting to get a multi engine or Ducted fan type. ME

Frequently I have been known to put a pair of 1/4 inch ply pads under an engine to move it, and the CG, forward.
Good luck...

Hi Six, Is that *under* the engine or behind the motor mount? Under the engine raises the thrust line doesn't it?
"Six_O'Clock_High" >

Here is mine. Built from a plan in tail dragger mode. Magnum xls40, n
c of g problem, flies like a Kadet absolutely fantastic. The tail wheel is not connected to the rudder, has its own pushrod. Plane is at my Dads at the moment, but if you want I could get som pics of the tailwheel set up on the weekend. Hope the pic posts as my first try at posting pics.
Regards
Pau
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