Changing the Angle of the Dangle

A zillion years ago the Quickie community struggled with ground handling issues. All sorts of things were blamed, including "deck angle". People thought handling issues could be corrected by changing the tailwheel bracket or tail spring to raise the tail and thus reduce the deck angle.

Well, it turned out the real culprit was the main wheel alignment. This was expounded upon by a fellow named David Gall in what is now called "The Gall Alignment" and is a whole other topic.

If you look at older photos of my plane, you can see that the tail spring angles downward. All this really accomplishes is to increase drag and this will be the best time to correct it. It's pretty simple surgery and no time like the present. I did have to relocate the lower rudder phenolic bearing, but that was pretty easy, too.