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Tundra Tires

A

Alan Wright

Member
I live on a grass strip in Michigan. During most of the winter we have a few inches of snow on the runway (too much for my RV-6 with stock wheels but not deep enough to require a ski plane). Has anybody equipped their RV with large tires to operate in these conditions? I have a neighbor who feels that 26 inch Alaska Bushwheels would work, although he hasn't tried it. I would appreciate hearing from anyone with experience in this area.

Thanks

Alan Wright
 
Alan,

Check with Michael Ice. He is building a -9 up in AK and is putting 6" tires on his plane.

It turns out the 6" tires/wheels use the same axle as the tundra tires and this required him to have custom gear legs made with longer axles.

PS. Where in Michigan? We hope to fly up to visit Mom soon.
 
Michigan trip

Bill,
If you come up to Michigan post a message. There are quite a few RV's around Grand Rapids, I'm based at Ottawa Exec (Z98). We could plan a breakfast or lunch trip.

Gary
N715AB
 
I will let you guys know when and if we make it up that way.

Our current plans are to head up there before OSH this year. Who knows what will really happen.
 
I'd like to visit you next time I'm in Michigan. My sister lives about 2 miles east of the airport, just south of Bonnie Castle lake.
 
Tundra tires

By all means do so. I have a fully operational 50's soda fountain in my hangar. This really is where the ice cream never runs out (for fliers of radials, ragwings & taildraggers) and of course nose wheel RV's.

Alan
 
tundra tires and ice cream

Hello from the frozen north.:cool:

As Bill stated I did put 6:00 X 6 tires/wheels on my RV-9 (tail dragger). I did that so I can land on our numerous gravel (up to 3 inch rocks) runways and taxi with out getting stuck. Also it is hard to find large tires for 5" wheels and so I went with the 6".


But the original question is, will 26" Tundra Tires handle a couple of inches of snow? The answer is yes.

But I don't think your RV will be happy with 26" tires on it. The drag would be horrible unless you built some huge wheel pants for it. I had 26" tires on my last Cessna 170B and it slowed it down from about 110 to 90 mph.

When you say a couple of inches of snow that is pretty vague. A couple of inches of dry snow over a hard packed frozen runway or ramp shouldn't be a problem for any size trie/wheel combination. But make that a couple of inches of wet snow over uneven soggy ground and it is a different beast.

Allan, I think for your conditions if you upgrade to 6" wheels (not an easy task) you could then experiment with all sorts of tires combinations easily. I would bet 8:50 X 6 combination would handle the conditions you describe very well using soft field taxi/take off/landing techniques.

Count me in on the ice cream if I am ever in your area. If you or any RV folks find there way to Alaska look me up. I will provide all sorts of help if I can.

Mike Ice
Anchorage, Alaska
firewall forward (I can almost hear the motor running)
 
6" wheel mods

Mike,

Can you provide information on the mods required to use 6" wheels?
One of the main reasons we went with the 9 is to be able to get in and out of the many grass strips in Michigan. My primary training was in a Citabria 7eca and we hit every grass strip we could find, I loved it. I plan on putting 6" wheels on the 9 (a long time from now) along with the scott tailwheel.

Any information would be appreciated.

Keith
 
Tundra tires

Bill

I have a monthly (in the summer) fly-in for free ice cream for all radials, ragwings and taildraggers so that would of course include your RV 9. (the dirty little secret is that the ice cream is free any time to just about anybody)

Mike

Thanks for the info. If you don't mind, I may give you a call one of these days to talk about all this. What I do know for sure is that by next winter I have to have found a way to keep my plane flying.

Alan
 
tundra tires

Hello from Alaska,:cool:

It is the start of the Iditarod today and a fine day for the event. 10 degrees:eek: and snowing. I think I will stay in the shop and finish connecting the cabin heat for the RV-9.

Here are a few answers, and a warning. This is a modification to your RV that others will not like. You will get some grief.

I had to get one (1") longer axles for the RV-9 in order to use the 6" wheels.

I got the longer gear legs from the same person that makes the gear legs for Van's. Mr Harmon Lange, whose cell phone number is 503-781-4147, he also has a web site. He will just make a set of these during a normal run of regular gear legs. Of course it costs a little extra but you can send your other gear legs back to Van's for a credit or delete them from the original order. The bolt hole for the attachment to the motor mount will be in the right place. The gears legs will not be painted, I had mine powdercoated. There will not be a hole in the axle for the cotter pin, but I think that is standard anyway.

The 6" wheels I bought from Grove Landing gear, www.groveaircraft.com. Again either delete or return the 5" to/from Van's.

The above set up will be a little too large for the standard wheel pants for the 5" wheels and the RV-10 wheel pants will look out of place on the 9. I have the regular size wheel pants and will make them fit the 6" wheels some how. After all this is experimental.

The tail wheel and tail wheel stinger upgrades I got from:

Aviation Products, Inc
114 Bryant St.
Ojai, CA 93023
ph/fax (805) 646-6042

I even got a stainless steel stinger for the tail wheel from these folks.

Here is a thread from VAF: http://www.vansairforce.com/community/showthread.php?t=5361

I don't seem to be able to figure out how to insert links or pictures into this message very well. Probably just to lazy to try, I would rather be in the shop building an RV. I plan on flying this RV-9 this summer.

Anyone that wants more info on this (or anything else I can help with) can email me or call.

Mike Ice
Anchorage, Alaska
907-344-4401
[email protected]
 
tundra tires

Keith,

I thought I would use the Scott Tail wheel as well but could not figure out an easy way to do so. The Scott tail wheel assembly takes a flat spring steel bar and the RV has a round stinger. Yes, I know Scott has some round hole tail wheels but they are very big and very heavy. Putting that much extra weight on the end of the RV will really mess up your weight and balance.

If you can send me an email I will send you a picture of the Tail wheel and stinger assembly that I will use. I think it will work just fine for my application and maybe it will work for yours as well.

If anyone else can figure out how to post a picture to this thread just send me an email and I will email you the picture and you can post it (Bill?):D.

Mike Ice
[email protected]
Build On:)
 
Mike,

Thank you for the responses and information. I am a long way from the landing gear but I really believe the large wheels and tires will happen (I just won't tell anyone at this point) Please send me any information and pictures to [email protected]

THANKS!

Keith
 
Alan,

Last year I took the Glasair Aviation tour at Arlington. I asked about the bushwheel performance and they said the 31" wheel has about the same amount of drag as a set of floats!!! I would agree, 8:50s seem to be the way to go. I don't know who's gear they buy, but it seems similar to the RV. FWIW

Ryan
 
Tundra tires

I think I will forget the whole thing and get a J-3 on wheel penetration skis. I hate to modify a beautiful RV for what is a relatively short winter flying season. The J-3 will look good on our strip and in my hangar alongside the RV and Stearman.

Don't forget about the free ice cream at Newman's Field for all comers.

Alan
 
RV8 on Bushwheels...


Check out the -8 with 31" AK Bushwheels. We had to modify the gearlegs so we could keep reasonable over the nose visibility, and are having an AK tailwheel modifed to work with our stinker.
Really great on rough fields, what you think Smokey, think it'll handle "The Swamp"??
 
Bill,

That looks great! Any problems with rocks or debris picked up by the tires impacting the underside of wings or flaps? I'd think you might have a dent risk.
 
Big tires on RV6

I am extremely interested in the possibility of larger tires, both mains and tailwheel. But you're right, the drag is horrible, so pants are a necessity.
With good pants, what do you think the speed penalty would be for 6x6's?

I've also thought about using 8x6's just to get the nose and angle of attack up higher so 3-points would be at a lower airspeed.

Also, on your gravel experience, do you chip a lot of paint or do the flying surfaces stay reasonably clean?

Any info always helps.

G.
 
AOA

Thanks Steve, I'll look at those posts/blogs.

A 3-point angle of attack will be higher with bigger tires up front, that's all I meant. The RV6 3-point attitude in stock trim is not very nose-up, so I was thinking it might be easier to full-stall it in 3-point with 2-3" more height at the mains. Don't really know for sure about this.

G.
 
Not much bigger

Hmmmm - Smokey liked them, but the larger tires don't seem that much bigger. Certainly not enough to significantly change my 3-point AOA. What pants fit them? Stock? He only mentioned "pressure recovery". Looks like he didn't mess with the tailwheel either.
 
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