Tailwheel wear after 1,000 hours...

Just back from Oshkosh with a small bag of goodies including a new tailwheel.

I stopped by Flyboy Accessories and thought that the tailwheels looked a whole lot nicer than my old one... the rubber was round and squishy rather than flat and cut up

Here is a comparison shot of what 1,000 hours on the bonded rubber / nylon hub Deluxe tailwheel looks like:

(This is the exact same wheel type... new and with 1,000 hours)

[email protected] said:

JHere is a comparison shot of what 1,000 hours on the bonded rubber / nylon hub Deluxe tailwheel looks like:

Click to expand...

A 1000 hours? Holy cow Batman....as I recall, you started flying yours just a few months before I flew mine. I'm around 375 total, and you're doing 250 a year!

The original tailwheel that came with my kit looked like your new one, but the lightweight one I replaced it with looked more like the left one. But new.

The lightweight one was about a pound lighter... worth checking the weight and balance.

Dave

We changed to the lightweight one but have now gone to the rounded Flyboys one.

The problem we found was it formed a flat spot when parked and taxiing was unpleasant.

The square edge also didn't give very good handling compared to the rounded one.

Just my 2 cents.

We claim that for many guys, the deluxe tire will effectively be a "lifetime" tire. Thanks go to Stephen for reinforcing our claim.

I'm interested to know if Stephen flew mostly off of concrete, asphalt, or turf.

I had 350 hours on my deluxe tire, mostly on turf, and it showed very little wear... as you might expect.

FWIW, Dayton has changed the rubber compound used on the lightweight tires. The new ones should be more resistant to flat spots. Also, there will soon be a similar 4" diameter tire available for lightplanes such as the Sonex.

DanH said:

A 1000 hours? Holy cow Batman....as I recall, you started flying yours just a few months before I flew mine. I'm around 375 total, and you're doing 250 a year!

Click to expand...

Slacker! Nine year on the Val, 1800 hours - you can do the math. ANd I have two OTHER RV's to keep flying.....

I've got a couple of worn tailwheels sitting on the shelf - we're using the Lightweight on the RV-3, and in 350 hours, it has shown no appreciable wear.

Ironflight said:

Slacker! Nine year on the Val, 1800 hours - you can do the math.

Click to expand...

I go everywhere twice as fast, thus requiring less time. Yeah, yeah, that's it!

Stephen replied to me (offline) and said that his flying is mostly from asphalt.