"Ken Finney" wrote in
:


"Bertie the Bunyip" wrote in message
.. .
"Ken Finney" wrote in
:

My first dumb question for the day:

With all the renewed Cub interest due to LSA, I haven't see any
available with tricycle gear. Have I just missed them, or is there
a fundamental reason (e.g. low thrust line would make propeller too
small) why no one is making them?

P.S. If purists want to eviscerate me for using "Cub" and
"tricycle" in the same sentence, I'll consider myself eviscerated!



There was a tri gear conversion for the cub back in the fifties. I've
only ever seen one, at OSH a long time ago. It had no nosewheel
steering, the nosewheel castored using bungees as a centering device,
I don't remember who did the conversion, but the noswheel conversion
for the Twin Beech was the same, so it might have been Tradewinds or
Volpar who did it. I'm sure there's one or two of these flying around
somewhere. It was unpopular for obvious reasons, though.
Nowadays, I can't see a reason for doing one. There are vastly
superior tri
gear airplanes out there that'd probably be cheaper than a cub for
those who prefer all the mod cons. Me, I'd take the cub.

there were a couple of tri gear Champs, one of which had the third
wheel just aft of the rear seater's butt! I never saw the point of
that. you still had a taildragger, but one with less tailwheel
authority than the original.


Thanks for the informative reply. For "heritage Cubs", and can see
why tricycle gear was really rare. For new "Cubs", I can also see (if
from an insurance standpoint, if nothing else) why tricycle gear might
be a popular option.


Well, I still don't really see the point. Back when the conversions were
happening, tri gear was the coming thing and it was just an attempt to
"modernise" the airplane. That's not the case these days, and actually,
there ma be more converted Tri-pacers to pacers than there are original
pacers these days, so aside from anything else, you'd be bucking the
tide converting a Cub.
Also, they simply aren't all that hard to fly. They are harder to fly
than an airplane with a training wheel, but hundreds of thousands of
people have learned to fly in airplanes that are much much harder to fly
than cubs. Learning to fly a taildraggr is a way of increasing your
skills well beyond that which you would posess if you never dipped your
toe in this particular puddle of aviation. It will increase your feel
and understanding of flight which can be carried into any other sort of
aviation you cae to name. It's pretty easy to tell a pilot who has some
tailwheel experience just from watching the way he handles a crosswind
or the way he co-ordinates a turn.
The cub is arguably the best tailwheel trainer ever made. It won't
tolerate poor technique, but it won't hurt you or itself if you **** up.
Not as easily as other airplanes will, anyway. The Champ and Citabria,
are, in my view, way too easy, and some others are just a little too
unforgiving (the Luscombe for instance) for training. The cub will
bounce from one end of the runway to the other if you don't have the
stick in your gut, but it probably won't cause it or you any damage.
Groundloops,at least on grass, are generally no big deal providing you
don't run into anything. Once they don't happen at too high a speed (and
anything below touchdown speed is pretty much OK) the instructor doesn't
even need to take control to prevent it. This is a huge advantage in a
trainer. The more an airplane can show you about the nature of flight,
and the less the instructor needs to explain in theory, the better.
There's no need to go on and on about adverse yaw and the use of rudder
in a cub. If you don't co-ordinate the rudder, the airplane won't go
where it's told and will feel positively awful to be in. The right
amount of rudder and bingo, smooth and in control.
These are all things you realy should do in any airplane, but you can
get away with very sloppy flying in most modern types.
So, again, why ruin a perfectly good airplane by making it into
something it was never intended to be? If you want a nosewheel airplane
that's fun to fly, there's plenty out there to choose from.


Bertie