Wheel Pants & Taxiing @ Oshkosh

I have been accumulating information and plans for my first trip to Oshkosh. It seems a quick turnoff the runway onto the grass is to be expected. I am concened about damaging wheelpants as I leave the runway or crossing the grass. Is this a concern, what have other folks experienced as they taxied off the runway?

Steve - RV8

steve murray said:

I have been accumulating information and plans for my first trip to Oshkosh. It seems a quick turnoff the runway onto the grass is to be expected. I am concened about damaging wheelpants as I leave the runway or crossing the grass. Is this a concern, what have other folks experienced as they taxied off the runway?

Steve - RV8

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Steve:

I've flown into Oshkosh twice in my RV-8 and many of my -8 friends have done so even more. I haven't had a problem and never heard of a problem with damaging wheelpants. The ground is firm and grass cut low. I doubt you'll have any problems.

Chris

Wheel Pants

This is a great concern to me too. I installed my wheel pants too low trying to gain anothe knot or two speed. I've already skinned the bottoms once. Another time I chose to shut down and "back" the plane off the pavement onto the grass as there was a significant drop off from the pavement to the grass. (Taildragger)

I've seen RV's taxiing out with large clumps of grass in the wheel pants at both Oshkosh and S n F.

My wheelpants are about as low as any I've seen. Oshkosh hasn't been a problem the three times I've taken the RV there.

Inevitably, this means I'll find an RV swallowing pothole this year. ;-)

It is not a bad idea to bring a 6 - 12" wooden disc for the wheel to sit on and avoid sinking into the dirt. With all of the rain we have had lately the ground could be soft and you could sink / settle up to the bottom of the wheel pants.

No worries

chrispratt said:

Steve:

I've flown into Oshkosh twice in my RV-8 and many of my -8 friends have done so even more. I haven't had a problem and never heard of a problem with damaging wheelpants. The ground is firm and grass cut low. I doubt you'll have any problems.

Chris

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My experience is the same as Chris'. The ground and grass are groomed. I don't think I even had any grass stains on my white wheel pants.

John Clark
RV8 N18U "Sunshine"
KSBA

I've never experience any problems with my Cherokee at Oshkosh. With that said, I probably have a couple inch clearance from the bottom on the wheel pant to the ground.

The ground crews at OSH are usually pretty helpful. In the Vintage area they pointed out holes, ruts, and marshy areas to avoid.

How long can one expect to taxi on wednesday or thursday? I found out during my condition inspection that no air cleaner is installed in my bought -4 and I'm concerned how much "stuff" I'll injest on the way to parking? If it's more than a couple minutes the stress might kill me!

Get your affairs in order...

grantcarruthers said:

How long can one expect to taxi on wednesday or thursday? I found out during my condition inspection that no air cleaner is installed in my bought -4 and I'm concerned how much "stuff" I'll injest on the way to parking? If it's more than a couple minutes the stress might kill me!

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Depending on the time of day and the traffic you might have to do a 10 to 30 minute taxi. Again, depending on time and traffic, departing can be worse.

John Clark
RV8 N18U "Sunshine"
KSBA

I have only flown into Osh one time ('07) so I'm not an expert. I did arrive on Saturday before the opening at around 9:30 AM. I didn't see another plane until on final and my total time on grass was less than 100' at the parking area. When it is slow they let you go until there is a turnoff. If you can get there early it is a piece of cake.

Bob Kelly

steve murray said:

I have been accumulating information and plans for my first trip to Oshkosh. It seems a quick turnoff the runway onto the grass is to be expected. I am concened about damaging wheelpants as I leave the runway or crossing the grass. Is this a concern, what have other folks experienced as they taxied off the runway?

Steve - RV8

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Any updates 10 years later ?

Pavement to grass transition is the concern.

Thanks

A2Jake said:

Any updates 10 years later ?

Pavement to grass transition is the concern.

Thanks

Click to expand...

In reality, most grass turnouts are to the south off 27 and off the hard ramp into HBC. It's raining at OSH right now, so they may not be be using a grass turnout off 27 tomorrow. Don't worry about it.

OSH was the only place the plane was off pavement between inspections when I attended in 2017. I had a fairly extended taxi down a pretty rough, muddy, gravel-strewn taxiway, then through some grass and over a strip of gravel to park. Somewhere along the way, it seems I picked up a rock or something that tore up the aft end of the wheel opening pretty good. Both main wheel pants. We discovered it months later, when we pulled the pants for the condition inspection. Not a huge deal, mostly time consuming as it was a chance to develop my fiberglass repair skills. Our paint is not exactly show quality, so someone else might feel differently about it.

I don't know how big the builder had cut the wheel openings, but obviously they needed to be a bit longer in the rear.

I have now repaired all 3 of my wheel pants. While debating the adv and dis of wheel pants vs retract gear, I wondered has anyone seen "retract wheel pants"?!?!

I envision a small electric motor to slide the bottom hemisphere of the pants up and down. Enables easy access and inspection while on the ground. Clamshells for a tighter fit while in the air.

Someone must have done it already...

It can happen

I go to OSH primarily to watch arrivals (and drink beer....) and it's amazing the stuff you see. Relevant to this thread, I watched a very nice Long EZ promptly shred BOTH of its main wheelpants when turning off the runway and onto the grass a few years back.

The CAP kid nearest the plane at the time did a commendable job noticing the damage, alerting the pilot, and getting him to a spot where it could be assessed without interrupting the flow. (Another thing I've noticed over the years is that those kids do a great job.)

Anyway, the now Pantsless Composite Pilot was decidedly Not Happy and was Even Less Happy when, after gathering the shreds of his wheelpants, he couldn't hot-start the Long EZ, which I'm pretty sure had an auto engine conversion.

This all played out in front of the standard scores of camera-laden onlookers in goofy hats, naturally.

I do suspect the Long EZ's wheelpants were very low to the ground, just based on Long EZ's I've seen since. I've never had a problem with the -9A in grass.

I'd actually be more worried about sinking into the ground after parking if it's been raining. We were there for Sploshkosk and they closed the field a few planes after we landed when a 210 sank axle deep (at least) *while taxiing*. A few days later we had to get a bunch of onlookers to rock the Warrior out of its divots when it was time to go.

Another advantage to the lightweight RV! Given the recent rains, I'm planning to land with much less than full fuel.

Last year when we landed Saturday morning on 27 they had everyone exiting to the right via taxiways vs left into the grass because of conditions. We didn't touch grass until we got to HBC where it was more or less dry.

If you don't like it shut down and get out and check it out. If you are parking in the RV area you will taxi mostly on hard surface until you get to grass parking area. The hard surface to grass transition I can't recall. Once on grass the surface is pretty hard and smooth. RV's have different wheel fairing clearance depending how it was intalled.

My wheel pants were VERY close to the ground in three point. I scuffed the very bottom of my wheel pants at other airports. You could not see it on the ground. It was my battle scars.... I don't bothered touching it up because I scuffed them up at other airports as well.... Cheers George

Teflon Paint on mine

After my first scratch on the bottom of my pants, I quickly realized it wouldn't be the last, so when I had them off, I painted the lower AFT pant bottom with Teflon urethane paint we use on the wear surfaces of the Boeing flaps and such. Its an easy roll-on very durable paint that I also use on my flap leading edges. It can be color tinted to closely match other paint colors, but since my pants are white, the basic white Teflon is hardly noticeable. It doesn't prevent every scratch, but it helps, and makes it easy to touch up.

If you?re unfortunate enough to fall into a grass hole DO NOT try to power your way out. If the hole didn?t damage the nose wheel pant then the process of trying to power out of the hole likely will.

My recommendation is to shut down, climb out and look at your aircraft and the surrounding area. Pull your plane out of the hole, climb back in, restart and taxi with care. Don?t ask why I recommend this and I won?t embarrass myself and explain why I once had to spend over $500 to replace something.