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This comes from a slightly related question about drag from landing gear.

A tail-dragger is the old-school layout of aircraft, particularly WW2-era fighters. It's also known as Conventional Landing Gear.

The first two landing gear is usually retractable, but the tail wheel is not.

At least, I have never seen such a configuration with a retractable tail wheel. Has there ever been one?

Note: question excludes now more common tri-cycles.

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DrZ214
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    The majority of WW2-era aircraft do in fact have retractable tailwheels; certainly the ones designed within a few years of the war breaking out. – egid Nov 20 '16 at 03:29
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    @egid I contest that majority is not the right word to use here, but you do have a point that the number of designs with a tailwheel was not insignificant. – J W Nov 20 '16 at 04:03
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    I'm pretty sure it's the right word. Of the most-produced aircraft of the war, the only ones I've been able to confirm was only produced with a fixed tailwheel are the Hawker Hurricane, Avro Lancaster and Ilyushin Il-2. The He-111, B-17, P-51, P-47, Fw 190, Ju 88, Yak-3, and a large number of Bf 109 and Spitfires all were built with retractable tailwheels. I'm sure there are more with fixed tailwheels, but I maintain that the majority of WWII combat types had fully-retractable gear. The DC-3/C-47 was designed a bit too pre-war for me to consider it 'WW2 era'. – egid Nov 20 '16 at 05:22
  • @JonathanWalters fwiw, OP didn't mention tricycle gear, so if that's how you read my initial comment I think you misunderstood. – egid Nov 20 '16 at 05:23
  • @egid I'm excluding tricycle gear (1 nosewheel, 2 back wheels). Will edit OP. – DrZ214 Nov 20 '16 at 05:35
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    I'm not sure you need to clarify, since your title (and question) both specifically call out 'taildragger'. – egid Nov 20 '16 at 06:29
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    Grumman F4F, Douglas SBD Dauntless, Curtiss SB2C Helldiver, Douglas TBD Devatastor - not retractable. Grumman F6F, Brewster F2A Buffalo - retractable. – Tony Ennis Nov 20 '16 at 14:21
  • @Jonathan, an overwhelming majority of fighters produced during WW2 (after 1940) had retractable tailwheel. Practically all Soviet ones (Yak-1,3,7,9; MiG-3; LaGG-3; La-5,7), except for early Yak-1 revisions and a few minor modifications of others; all Fw 190, most (but not all) Bf 109. These alone outnumber all American-built fighters (of which, still, perhaps the majority had retractable tailwheel). Sometimes they went so far as to cover cowling gaps with paper just to gain a few more km/h of speed! – Zeus Nov 21 '16 at 02:19
  • @Zeus Fighters are all well and good. My statement was regarding "WW2-era aircraft". I present the Il-2, the most produced military aircraft of all time, and second in total number produced only to the civilian C172. We can all cite statistics going either direction, particularly if we qualify the statistics to a particular year, role, type vs quantity produced, etc. The point is, many did—and many did not—have the retractable tailwheel. – J W Nov 21 '16 at 02:48
  • @TonyEnnis, the TBD, SBD, and F4F were mostly pre-war types that were outdated at the start of the war. The American air force and all the aircraft were pretty outdated at the start of the war, maybe with the exclusion of the B17 and the B24. The F6F, on the other hand, was the first American plane in which an average pilot could beat the Japanese zero. The SB2C was also kind of outdated, maybe not so much as the TBD, SBD, and the F4F. Also, the SB2C was not a fighter, which were usually designed as light and aerodynamic as possible to increase speed and range. – J Lopez May 19 '20 at 16:11
  • Even some sailplanes with retractable main wheels have had retractable tailwheels. The more common arrrangement is a tiny little non-steerable tailwheel where only the bottom sticks out of the fuselage, but I recently saw an exotic (expensive) motorglider with a steerable tailwheel (to facilitate unassisted taxiing) that was fully retractable. – quiet flyer May 19 '20 at 17:08

7 Answers7

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Yes, there are. The Boeing B-17 FLying Fortress is one example of an aircraft designed with a retractable tailwheel.

enter image description here Source: USAAF via Wikimedia, Public Domain (USGOV-PD)

Another example would be the Vought F4U Corsair:

enter image description here Source: Wikimedia, cc-by-sa-2.0

Doubtless there are also other examples of aircraft similarly equipped with retractable tailwheels.

Vikki
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J W
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Concorde! Actually a "bumper". Obviously it was there to protect against over-rotation on takeoff, but the relevant item on the checklist was four greens, not three.

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Plucky Underdog
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    @ymb1 The term "tail dragger" is imprecise and contested. The Concorde did have a tail wheel, and did—however rarely—drag its tail on the tailwheel. I think this is a very valid answer, illustrating the vast variation within aircraft design! – J W Nov 20 '16 at 22:38
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    'The term "tail dragger" is imprecise and contested.' — it is? – egid Nov 27 '16 at 03:06
  • @Egid Yes, by some accounts the term should only be used to refer to conventional gear aircraft equipped with a tail skid—at the exclusion of aircraft equipped with a tailwheel—while other uses or definitions include any conventional gear aircraft—as such aircraft literally or figuratively drag their tail. – J W Apr 18 '17 at 19:43
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As others have mentioned, yes.

Later in World War 2, speed and range became more important than weight and mechanical complexity; an extended tail wheel may be mechanically simpler to build, but adds quite a large amount of drag, affecting range and speed.

There are too many examples to list with links/photos of them all, but a short list of examples include:

  • Mitsubishi Zero.

  • P-51 Mustang.

  • P-40 Thunderbolt.

  • Later marks of the Supermarine Spitfire (around the MkVIII from memory; I spent 6 years working on a MkV restoration).

  • Some models of Messerschmitt BF.109. The F models were 'cleaned up' aerodynamically with retracting tail wheels, while the subsequent G models had a fixed wheel due to a bigger tyre for better ground handling, which didn't retract as on the F models. Later G and K models again used a retracting wheel to lessen the drag.

  • Notable for being an oddball in that it's a jet tail dragger and also equipped for aircraft carrier landings would be the Supermarine Attacker. There's an in-flight photo with the wheels up here.

nathan
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In addition to the military fighters listed above numerous civilian airplanes with conventional landing gear had retractable tailwheel, including the Beech Staggerwing, the Boeing 307, the Curtis C-46 and many others.

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the friedrich models, earlier gustav models of the 109 and kurfurst had retractable gear

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The Bf-109E-4's did not have retractable tailwheel, but the Friedrich which came after the E did have retractable tailwheel. The G had a larger tailwheel to improve the on ground handling that was difficult because of the narrow track undercarriage. This made the tailwheel unretractable. The P-51s, many variants of spitfires, Fw-190, many P-47s, the P-36s, (which were not in service with the US but were with the French), most Yakolev fighters as mentioned above, the F4U, the Zero, the Ki-84 and many others.

The Stuka had no retractable landing gear but part of the reason was that the huge landing gear was used to reduce the airspeed in a dive.

In conclusion, most fighters and many aircraft of WWII had retractable tailwheels.

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A few more examples are the Soviet Tu-2 front line bomber (fully retractable) and the Il-10 attacker (partially retractable, i.e.: it folded into the fuselage but did not have a fairing).

Tu-2, note the tailwheel bay doors: Tu-2 at the China Aviation Museum, from Wikipedia

Il-10, note the folded tailwheel: Czech Il-10 in flight, from http://www.theworldwars.net/

AEhere supports Monica
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