Conventional landing gear

Conventional landing gear, or tailwheel-type landing gear, is an aircraft undercarriage consisting of two main wheels forward of the center of gravity and a small wheel or skid to support the tail. The term conventional persists for historical reasons, but nowadays most aircraft—including all jet aircraft—are configured with tricycle gear.

The term taildragger is aviation jargon for an aircraft with a conventional undercarriage, although some writers have argued that the term should refer only to an aircraft with a tailskid and not a tailwheel.

History

In early aircraft, a tailskid made of metal or wood was used to support the tail on the ground. In most modern aircraft with conventional landing gear, a small, articulated wheel assembly is attached to the rearmost part of the airframe in place of the skid. This wheel is steered by the pilot through a connection to the rudder pedals, allowing the rudder and tailwheel to move together.

Before aircraft commonly used tailwheels, many aircraft (like a number of the Sopwith single-seat fighters from later in World War I, especially the Camel and Dolphin fighters) were equipped with steerable tailskids, which operate exactly like a tailwheel. When the pilot pressed the right rudder pedal — or the right footrest of a "rudder bar" in World War I — the skid pivoted to the right, creating more drag on that side of the plane and causing it to turn to the right. While less effective than a steerable wheel, it did give the pilot some control of the direction the craft was moving while taxiing or beginning the takeoff run, before there was enough airflow over the rudder for it to become effective.