Original Posted By: Greg Cardinal
Stevee wrote: With the short fuse, and a light>engine A-65 this puts about 50 lbs of pressure on the tailwheel without a>pilot. YOu may ask so what if your CG is correct. Well I am here to tell>you that on your first hard tailwheel plant landing, you will likely bend up>the a-frame. I did. Twice. The fix was to strengthen the tailwheel frame>by using 3/4" .049 4130 instead of the 5/8" .035 and add a cross brace to>make an "A" rather than a "V". I have the correct set up now and it works,Yes ! I've talked to more guys who have had failures of this design on their first taxi tests or flights. Good advice to beef this up- and itwould not hurt to add some plywood along the longerons on one orboth sides (of each longeron) where this affair bolts to the airframe.Frank P. and another guy in Toledo had theirs rip right thru the wooda few years back when 1) Frank hit a drainage cover 2) the other guydid it going from grass onto a sharp edge of pavement. I must add that Frank uses a titanium shoe (skid with no keel) MC( I avoided the whole issue by installing a two part leaf spring whichprovides a nice ride on those plywood seats. I 'blocked in' that wholearea between the bottom longerons w/ a triangle of poplar too beef itup before I bolted the spring on. I'm using a 6" diam. solid rubbertailwheel and during the weight and balance the level flight empty weight at the tail was 12.8 lbs. I'm sure Stevee's data is pretty closeto that if not less.)________________________________________________________________________________