I have a decent pneumatic tail wheel and tail wheel steering is excellent and that means full power can be applied immediately. This actually decreases take-off distance quite a surprising amount as the tail wheel lifts earlier, reducing drag from the wheel and profile drag reduces also, which is the main benefit. We have all seen aircraft trying to drag themselves off the ground at too high an angle of attack, whereas, if the pilot had only pushed forward and lowered the angle of attack and gained 5 more knots, the aircraft would have flown away quite merrily.
When I had a solid tail wheel. it skitted around on the runway surface and then the steering was not so positive, so maybe full power could not be applied until there was some assistance from the small rudder. Also, takeoffs depend on the crosswind massively. If your aircraft wants to turn left, as mine does (depends on VW car engine or Aircraft engine as the direction of rotation is different) then I can apply full power immediately with a cross wind from the right as that helps counter-act torque steering and gyroscopic effect of the propeller disc when the tail lifts, an effect most people don't either know about or notice. But a crosswind from the left, pushing the tail to the right and the nose to the left and the left turn of the engine torque and prop gyro effect as the tail lifts and the rudder and tail wheel steering do not have enough authority to keep the aircraft pointing down the runway and I can't apply full power until that has all happened and airspeed is up to about 40 mph and then the take-off distance is greater by a large percentage. So the crosswind limits for my aircraft are about 10 to 15 mph from the left but possibly up to about 25 from the right. Hope these thoughts, as that is all they are Craig, help. But if you know what happens and understand exactly why they do, then possibly you can use them to your advantage. CH.
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