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Help me with this question. Remember the old Piper Tri-Pacer? I think it was a tricycle geared version of a Piper tail dragger...don't remember which. Let's load them up equally, same field, same day. Put them on the end of the runway. Add full power (don't remember if they had the same engine), stick full aft. Which one breaks ground first? I don't know. I suspect there may be more in play here than main gear position...such as elevator effectiveness.

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You can't lift a weight without expending energy. With a taildragger, the plane does not have to perform much work to get to the desired nose-high pitch attitude for the target climb airspeed. On the other hand, the tri-geared plane does. ..and this work performed to lift the A/C's center of gravity is accomplished by the engines in overcoming a component of reaction (which includes aerodynamic losses) at the elevator, stabilator, etc. The flow of air at and about the ele/stabilator, etc. with airflow incident at an angle with this control surface and/or airfoil's chord line creates a significant component of force opposite the aircraft's forward motion (commonly referred to as drag). In our universe's grand scheme of things, nothing is for free. This goes especially for energy. And about your "levitate" comment: I don't see what you're trying to imply.

Just to make sure this thread doesn't turn hostile between us, I'd like to recap the discussion at hand: You asked why is it necessary to pull back on takeoff to initially control vertical speed (seemingly contradictory to the practice of using power to control descent/ascent in the back-side of the envelope). I replied by stating that tricycle gears add another variable to the equation. I stand wholly by my response.

Now I remember why I didn't like Aero in college...

The 'levitate' was in reference to your previous post. My point was to refer to how some aicraft seemingly took off. Instead of rotating and climbing up at an angle, they instead seemed to rise without any significant increase in AOA. Ever see a B-52 takeoff? That's what I mean. In the DC-9 that I fly, the small model (the -15) has the same behavior at lift off.

Forget the 'hostile' bit. My only objective is to suggest to the sim pilots that comprise the majority of this forum's readership that they will have more success in flying their sims if they associate throttle with airspeed and stick with altitude. Any discussion of 'back side' flying is way over their heads. While it is certainly applicable to some real life aircraft in some circumstances, it is a 'fine tuning' of pilot technique that is inappropriate at this skill level.

Andy

Thanks for the link. That's a good place to go for basic aero questions.

Just because a sim takes skills to fly and we like this challenge doesnt mean that we have no life. I have one thank you.