When do controls return to neutral?

Ron Wanttaja writes:

It's a moot point, since I usually keep the elevators full down for the initial
part of the takeoff roll.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of this? Clearly, it keeps
the aircraft from leaving the ground, but other than that, what are
the pros and cons? Does it put stress on the nose gear?

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

Mxsmanic wrote:
Ron Wanttaja writes:

It's a moot point, since I usually keep the elevators full down for the initial
part of the takeoff roll.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of this?

Lack of tailwheel training, laziness, etc.

-Robert, CFII

In article ,
T o d d P a t t i s t wrote:

I use full down elevator in my Champ during takeoff. It has
a tailwheel, and the purpose is to get the tail up quickly
and get the nose down to normal flying attitude. The rudder
is effective, so I'm not very worried about yawing in a
crosswind gust. I don't want to get launched into the air
with a high angle of attack at low speed. The Champ
accelerates faster when it's in a normal flying attitude
with the tail up.

The Champ takes off perfectly fine with the stick neutral on takeoff.
In fact, the three point take off can actually be shorter than tailwheel
up takeoffs.

T o d d P a t t i s t wrote:
john smith wrote:

The Champ takes off perfectly fine with the stick neutral on takeoff.

I find with a passenger in the back that stick forward gets
me up on the wheels, while neutral leaves the tail down for
far longer.


Most of my time is Chief rather than Camp (although I do have about 20
hrs of Champ). By myself the plane takes off from the grass quiet well
from the 3 pt. With a pax I find I need to bring the tail up about a
foot to gain speed necessary to get off the grass.
BTW: In some tailwheel planes, moving the stick full forward
disconnects the tailwheel steering and allows castering, not a good
idea on takeoff roll.

-Robert, CFII

On Thu, 09 Nov 2006 18:36:36 +0100, Mxsmanic wrote:

Ron Wanttaja writes:

It's a moot point, since I usually keep the elevators full down for the initial
part of the takeoff roll.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of this? Clearly, it keeps
the aircraft from leaving the ground, but other than that, what are
the pros and cons? Does it put stress on the nose gear?

Taildragger aircraft; no nose gear.

Due to poor forward visibility, I like to get the tail off the ground as early
as possible. Here's a video of the takeoff, shot from an aft-mounted camera on
the axle:

http://www.bowersflybaby.com/takeoff-tail.mpg

Once the tailwheel is off the ground, you can see it turn left and right as I
keep the plane tracking (sorta) straight using the rudder (to which the
tailwheel is connected via springs). You can make out the elevator position,
too.

Ron Wanttaja