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Taildragger towing from the front

emsvitil

Well Known Member
What's the advantage of towing a taildragger from the front?

Tow from the rear up to a certain size?

Like this:

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I've wondered the same thing... thought of trying to modify my jackpoints for the purpose, but I'm sure they weren't designed for those stresses. Like your photo, watching the Canadian Historical Aircraft Association handling their Harvard made me wonder if designing a bespoke front towbar setup could be a practical alternative for my RV-8.
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I have a T-6, and I have a "Tug" that fits under the tailwheel. It is MUCH easier to maneuver the plane around.

With a tug from the front, you almost need two people to hook up the tow bar to the plane, then hook up the tow bar to the tug.

With the tailwheel tug, it is a one-person job. Just drive up behind the tailwheel and run under it, and drive away.

Towing from the nose wheel makes sense. Towing from the front in a tailwheel is a PITA.
 
wheel pants

I like to push mine from the tailwheel when going over any "rough" terrain so that the wheel pants don't get caught on anything.
 
we used to do this all the time when I was working line crew in college. Guy at out airport had a collection of taildraggers T-6, Stagger wing, Waco, stuff like that.

The most obvious thing I can think of is that you can push it back in the corner without the tug taking up space behind it.
 
At the Reno races, you’ll see whole teams moving their P-51’s out to the flight line with an A-frame rig and tug like that - very showy. Then there was the team that had one of those little square radio-controlled tugs that sets under the tailwheel - you’d see the airplane driving itself with no one around it all the way out to the flight line (with the guy controlling it sitting back at the K-Rail looking innocent). Always got a great crowd reaction!
 
I have a T-6, and I have a "Tug" that fits under the tailwheel. It is MUCH easier to maneuver the plane around.



Towing from the nose wheel makes sense. Towing from the front in a tailwheel is a PITA.

To Pete's point:

Come out to KRNM one day and watch him put his T-6 away and then watch the lineman put Chuck Hall's P51 away by towing from the front. It will sometimes take a new lineman 6 months to figure it out. Or, simply quit in frustration..:eek::( Pete's a heck of a lot smarter than he looks..:D:p
 
Come out to KRNM one day and watch him put his T-6 away and then watch the lineman put Chuck Hall's P51 away by towing from the front. It will sometimes take a new lineman 6 months to figure it out. Or, simply quit in frustration...
There’s no doubt that using one of those cool robot tugs on a taildragger is silly easy, just scoop up the tailwheel and put it right where you want it. But to say that the old school front towbar on a T-6 is difficult? Nah. The hardest part about it is getting it hooked to the tug, and an extra person is a huge help for that. But, once hooked up to the tug, pushing a T-6 or P-51 back into a tight corner is is stone simple and easy to do, just gotta think about the geometry and pushing a triangle around.

Taildraggers are easy to move with either front/rear tow attach; for me, the difficult operation is pushing a tricycle gear back into a tight spot. The T-28 is the worst with its short wheelbase... being accurate on a hangar push can be an exercise in frustration at times.
 
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