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Old 04-29-2015, 02:37 PM   #2 (permalink)
Otto
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Aptly, this video describes this as like driving a taildragger plane down the road. That's because rear steering is inherently unstable. Makes for a small turning radius, though.

Put the steering in front and she's stable: A teaching aid used in aeronautical engineering classes is a tricycle with fixed wheels on two corners and a castering wheel on the third. Roll it down an incline with the castering wheel in front, and she rolls straight and stable. Turn it around and roll it with the castering wheel at rear, she darts off to the side and ground loops.

That's why steered nose wheel tricycle landing gear is on the vast majority of modern aircraft, despite the extra weight of the nose wheel.

Buckminster Fuller was brilliant, but his car would have been vastly better had he at least had the front wheels steering, as is done on some modern motorcycle tricycles.
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