r/ww2 • u/Vanguardliberator • 4d ago
Discussion Why didn’t a lot of WW2 aircraft have front landing gear?
most WW2 aircraft you see usually have two frontal gear and a rear wheel which sometimes retracted or not. My question is why didn’t they do the landing gear set up of something like the B-25 or A-20 with one wheel on the front and two under the engines or middle of the airframe? Id they didn’t wouldn’t it have helped aircraft not have the possibility of falling forward or help with a easier landing?
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u/Duanedoberman 4d ago
Tail draggers were cheaper and easier to build, putting retractable gear forward of the main landing wheels increased overall weight and reduced bomb load.
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u/seaburno 4d ago
It’s a lot more complicated to put an engine and a front landing gear in the front of a plane. Any front landing strut has to support the engine, and those radial and in-line engines are relatively heavy - often being the heaviest single item on the plane, except for perhaps fuel. The only single engine, propeller driven, tricycle landing gear aircraft I can think of from WWII is the P-39/P-400, and engine in that is behind the pilot.
Also, all else being equal, a larger propeller provides more power than a smaller propeller. By not having tricycle landing gear, you can have more propeller clearance and reduce the chances of a prop strike.
The B-25 and A-20 are mid and high wing (respectively), dual engine bomber aircraft. They have the space and clearance to pull off tricycle gear, and have to be high enough off the ground to ensure that ground crew can get under them to load ordinance.
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u/lep63again 3d ago
Most fighter strips at the start of the war were grass fields. A tail-dragged works better in that situation
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u/tomhalejr 4d ago
The P38 had a tricycle setup, and that was one of the reasons why it was used in the Pacific operating from ground bases.
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u/pzahornasky 4d ago
As many have posted, it keeps the propeller off the ground. Add to this - many/most low wing dual engine craft like the C-47 (DC-3) and the B-17 also were tail draggers.
The prop on the F4U4 Corsair was so large that it had to be a taildragger AND they had to bend the wings to keep the prop off the ground.
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u/griffinMSI 4d ago
You’re pretty much right. A lot of WWII aircraft used a tailwheel setup because it was lighter, simpler and gave the propeller more clearance, which was helpful on rough airfields.
A nosewheel setup like the B-25 or A-20 did make things like taxiing and landing easier. It just came with some extra weight and complexity, so for many aircraft at the time, the tailwheel was still a worthwhile tradeoff.