Taildraggers and shaving brushes — advantages lost?
Taildraggers and shaving brushes — advantages lost?
Curtiss Robin at the Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum — photo by Joe May
Early on, aircraft had the main gear up front and a tail wheel. So, this came to be known as conventional gear, but slangily as “tail draggers”. As WW II came to a close, tricycle type landing gear arrangements became more and more common. Indeed, aircraft with nose wheels are now the norm.
But some taildraggers still fly, and not only for sport but as working airplanes. These aircraft must be flown profitably in this competitive world to be viable, or else they would be extinct. Aircraft such as the Douglas DC-3, the Curtiss C-46, the Antonov An-2, the Pilatus Porter and the de Havilland Beaver are common place examples — and there are more to be sure. One has to wonder, in this modern day of sophisticated tricycle gear airplanes, just why that is the case?
Lockheed PV-2 Harpoon at the Tillamook Air Museum — photo by Joe May
I think that there is a parallel with the shaving soap and shaving brush for men’s grooming. Outdated and old fashioned, you say? Harder work, you suppose? “Not cool!” to hipsters?
Hardly.
A conventional gear arrangement in an aircraft that is compared to a tricycle geared aircraft — each with the same weight and power — has some clear advantages. Taking off and landing distances are shorter. Using unprepared fields is a staple for a taildragger whereas a nose wheel would fear to tread (placing a weighty but hardy nose wheel so far forward has stability penalties). Although tricycle gear designs do have the advantage in cross winds and under taxi. That is why we find conventionally geared aircraft in quaint or remote areas and we find tricycle gear aircraft at modern airports and former air bases — it is the long even runways. Long runways also ended the age of the large commercial flying boats like the Pan Am Clipper, but that is the subject of another essay.
Pilots of conventional gear aircraft use more rudder finesse, to counter precession since the center or gravity lies behind the main gear, during landings and take offs whenever the tail is off the ground. But tricycle gear aircraft have to attain more airspeed to have more force on the elevators since more mass is being moved — you see that an engine must be rotated upward on take offs and the engine is much more heavy than the empennage. Another design characteristic of conventionally geared aircraft is the relative quickness to take off, but at the expense of trickier crosswind landings.
Ryan PT-22 Recruit at the Cavanaugh Flight Museum— photo by Joe May
So … if one requires the use of a grass field, red clay dirt road, gravel bar or jungle strip then a taildragger isn’t a relic from the past— it is the proper equipment for the job.
What about shaving soap brushes?
Shaving soap that is used with a brush produces a full, rich and moisturizing lather. The convenience of a canned product is balanced against the drying nature of the product due to the propellant needed to be mixed with the soap. This may be convenient, perhaps, but it is at the cost of the drying of the skin — and only to save time, not work effort. The time saved amounts to only one or two minutes, but that is without applying skin moisturizer to combat the effects of the canned shaving soap. The reality is that no time is saved. But many prefer to dispense shaving soap from a can as opposed to running hot water into a mug and using a shaving soap brush to make a lather.
Shaving brush and soap esoteric — photo by Joe May
If you know what you are doing when shaving, then you know what equipment to use.
Douglas M-2 at the NASM Udvar-Hazy Complex — photo by Joe May
In either case — whether moving away from conventional gear type aircraft or leaving the shaving soap brush behind — when one modernizes one must often leave a little good behind to advance.
