Ant-

Well, let’s not forget that even planes with fixed tailwheels have trouble with them also (see the case of the Sea Hurricane at Old Warden which lost its wheel here recently)…I have seen Mustangs, Corsairs, P-40’s, all kinds of planes with retractable wheels being flown with them UN retracted, and I have to guess here….I think the pilots just FORGET to retract them, or the mechanism to retract them is just disconnected so that the tailwheel is not taken up into its bay and forgotten about. Then again, it would seem to me also that these wheels would operate on the same retraction system that takes up the main gear, so how the two mains would retract but the tailwheel not, I can’t explain….something to ask the mechanics on the flightline at DX next year, I guess…

Mark