Bruce,
I've been using springless tailwheels for about 4 or 5 years and I really like them. There is very little difference when taking off or landing with a spring less tailwheel. The only difference is that you will use a small amount of brakes when slow taxing which I tended to do anyway when I did have springs, and when I need quick or larger corrections I used brakes anyway so the transition what not difficult.
The Tundra Lite tailwheel is a full castering tailwheel' however, it uses a small amount of adjustable tension to keep the tailwheel from
free castering, big difference!
The tension does a number of things I like, 1) it keeps the tailwheel in the same position for landing as it was when it took off, 2) There is no difference in the feel of the rudder pedals when the tailwheel is making the transition from ground to air or air to ground, 3) While making turns on the ground they are very smooth and controllable throughout the radius of the turn regardless of how tight you make the turn. Because there is no break away pin the tail will not snap around on you unexpectedly, and 4) it eliminates all shimmy.
I'll be installing the locking mechanism winter but from the pilots I've talked with and the reports I've heard from CFI who where training pilots in Highlanders(much shorter coupled then the CC), it was a great/must have tool, especially in crosswinds in which it kept the airplane straight down the runway. Granted you will need to remember to release it for turning but if it saved just one bad ground loop I'd say it was worth it
. The release handle will fit very nicely onto the front right side of the seat pan and will be easy to get to.
I installed the large Babybush tailwheel originally even though I knew it had a shimmy problem but I thought I could eliminate that by converting it to full castering with tension like the Tundra Lite, NOT!! It would still shimmied with any of the tailspring combinations available from CubCrafters. The main problem with the large Babybush is its round cross profile of the tire, as soon as it starts turning it wants to fall off to the direction of the turn which is the main cause for its shimmy, if the deck angle is the critical factor, well that changes with the size of tires you put on the mains, weight of the airplane and the springs you use. Like I said, I tried all the springs from CubCrafter and none of them worked with my CC using 29 or 31" tires. I still got shimmy most of the time when the tail touched the ground on any hard surface and once it starts to shimmy the two springs can't control the airplane and at that point I was relying on brakes.
The other positive feature of the Tundra Lite tailwheel is it's flat cross profile tire which makes it want to naturally track itself in the direction its moving, so when you put it into a turn it naturally wants to straight itself rather then falling off to the side like the BabyBush.
I know I've heard others that have found success with the alternative spring from CubCrafters but I didn't. If your looking for something that will work every time and can live with using some braking during turns I would definitely recommend the Tundra Lite.
Re: T3 Tailwheel Suspension?
Originally Posted by stede52
Bruce,
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