Another tailwheel discussion

[av8rps]

Welcome to the forum. This is a great resource, especially as you get further into your Kitfox ownership.

I think learning how to fly in a Kitfox, especially an early one, will make you a better pilot as they are a control sensitive and somewhat unstable compared to your average Piper or Cesna. After putting more than 2,000 hours on Kitfoxes and Avids, and flying a bunch of other general aviation aircraft over the years, I personally find the Kitfox a bit harder to fly than many other taildraggers, but it is not the raging monster some claim. However, some Kitfoxes and Avids have had really bad luck when using the Maule tailwheel (as in wrecked) which will make it nearly impossible for ANY pilot to fly, UNLESS it is set up correctly. (I know this from first hand experience - a master flight instructor that specializes in tailwheel put an Avid on its back because of a Maule tailwheel. And this guy knows how to handle tailwheel airplanes)

So if you have a Maule tailwheel on it we should talk before you get into your training in it. That could be the reason for 6 previous owners?

Paul

Hello all. I completed ground school this spring and want to get my SP ticket. I searched ALL summer for an affordable Kitfox to use as a trainer. The closest facility to me with a LSA for training is about 65 miles distant. I don't know when I decided I HAD to have a Kitfox but I did. I finally found a decent one about two weeks ago. It is currently in the warehouse where I work. I want to get to know this Beauty intimately before I get a waiver to use it for my SP training. I've been lurking on this and the Avid forum for some time. I have certainly gleaned a great deal of knowledge from those forums. Thank you all for an education and your thoughts. Lou

[KFfan]

Thanks av8rps!

I thinks part of the attraction to the KFII is the relative "instability" of it and the challenge of a tailwheel. I have read many posts, here and elsewhere, that mention if one can attain the tailwheel endorsement one can handle most any other.

Please don't think that I am overly confident. I just have a good handle on some of the things to expect and my own abilities when learning new skills in other aspects of my life.

Included with the plane is a new Matco wheel with a Carlisle 4ply 9X3.5-4 tire.
Oops! I'll have to watch where I land. It states "NOT FOR HIGHWAY SERVICE"! Any thoughts on this wheel? I have not yet mounted it.

I have ordered the history from the FAA. I should have it tomorrow. Hopefully it will be clean. I did search accident/incident files and was not able to find this ship there.

[cgruby]

Welcome to the forum. This is a great resource, especially as you get further into your Kitfox ownership.

I think learning how to fly in a Kitfox, especially an early one, will make you a better pilot as they are a control sensitive and somewhat unstable compared to your average Piper or Cesna. After putting more than 2,000 hours on Kitfoxes and Avids, and flying a bunch of other general aviation aircraft over the years, I personally find the Kitfox a bit harder to fly than many other taildraggers, but it is not the raging monster some claim. However, some Kitfoxes and Avids have had really bad luck when using the Maule tailwheel (as in wrecked) which will make it nearly impossible for ANY pilot to fly, UNLESS it is set up correctly. (I know this from first hand experience - a master flight instructor that specializes in tailwheel put an Avid on its back because of a Maule tailwheel. And this guy knows how to handle tailwheel airplanes)

So if you have a Maule tailwheel on it we should talk before you get into your training in it. That could be the reason for 6 previous owners?

Paul

Hi Paul

I caught your comment about Maul tail wheels. How about elaborating a little as to what are some of the pit falls regarding this tail wheel and a Kit Fox. I've got one on my Type III, but haven't found any reason why I would remove it. I've als flown several other airplanes with that tail wheel and other that a lot of slack in them, they work as good as a small Scott.

You really got my curious up.

[Av8r3400]

The main issue with Maul wheels is their propensity to prematurely unlock, going full swivel, if not set up perfectly.

In an early Kitfox (1-4), if the tail unlocks when you aren't expecting it, the plane will come around (ground loop). That is a guarantee. Especially with an inexperienced pilot. These planes are short coupled and quick on the controls.

It is highly recommended that until you gain a good level of experience, you remove the unlocking cam plate off the wheel keeping it locked to the steering chains.

I kept the cam off until I had 100 hours in my plane. By then I felt I had enough experience to handle it. Last summer I still looped my plane (luckily at a slow speed with no damage!) when the wheel unlocked unexpectedly.

[kmach]

I have a Matco 8" dual arm tailwheel , the lightweight one.

It has worked flawlessly for over 300 hrs.

It is much better than the solid 6" that was originally on it!

[TahoeTim]

Is the tailwheel on the S7 an issue?

[cgruby]

The main issue with Maul wheels is their propensity to prematurely unlock, going full swivel, if not set up perfectly.

In an early Kitfox (1-4), if the tail unlocks when you aren't expecting it, the plane will come around (ground loop). That is a guarantee. Especially with an inexperienced pilot. These planes are short coupled and quick on the controls.

It is highly recommended that until you gain a good level of experience, you remove the unlocking cam plate off the wheel keeping it locked to the steering chains.

I kept the cam off until I had 100 hours in my plane. By then I felt I had enough experience to handle it. Last summer I still looped my plane (luckily at a slow speed with no damage!) when the wheel unlocked unexpectedly.

I see your point. I've been slowly becoming acquainted with my Type III with a Maul TW. I have to admit, I've made some really spectacular landings, some bordering on almost an what some might consider an aerobatic maneuver. Allowing the airplane to yaw unchecked, will most certainly result in a GL, however, when everything else fails, there's always brakes. I have never considered removing the cam, I guess I like the full swivel capability too much.

Part of TW training is learning to deal with the monster. When I was a 16 year old kid, flying a Cub, I made a lot of crazy landings, but all my 60 years of flying, I've never ground looped one yet. I can't even phantom an experienced instructor putting an airplane over on it's back due to a tail wheel becoming unlocked.

Cheers,

[av8rps]

(Moderator: I didn't mean to hijack this thread for our new member, so maybe if possbile the posts about the tailwheel issues could be peeled off and put under a new title labeled; Groundloops & Maule Tailwheels?)

Hey Chuck,

I can't help myself from commenting about your post here as it is such a good example of the point I was trying to make. Sorry about making it a novel, but I felt this was worth a good explanation. So here goes;

I learned how to fly in a J3 Cub in my teens. I didn't learn how to fly a tricycle gear until I was in my mid 20's. So it is safe to say I grew up on a tailwheel.

Consequently, it was a real blow to my ego the day I am test flying a friends' show quality Avid Flyer (that flew perfect) when I am beginning to think after 4 botched landing attempts that I am going to roll his beautiful labor of love into a ball. No matter what I did, I couldn't land it without losing control of it (full opposite rudder and brake were useless as it was all happening too fast to do that, and had gone too far left to try and turn it 90 degrees to the right before going off the runway). But finally, after countless go-arounds.... I managed to get it on the ground in one piece. The builder was there, so we looked at everything, tire pressure, how tight the bungees are, toe in and toe out of the main gear, etc, etc. And after regaining my composure, with slightly different air pressure in the tires and another wrap on the bungees, I tried it again, only to find out it was still impossible to land . Again, after a bunch of almost ground loops that I managed to fly away from, I got it back on the ground. Now completely frustrated (and scared) I told my friend (who was not a pilot at that point) that I was afraid if I kept flying his plane that I was going to wreck it. Most confusing was that I had already flown more than 40 hours off this plane on floats, and all we were doing was trying it out on wheels so a local tailwheel flight instructor could start teaching him how to fly in his own airplane. So I knew this particular Avid well. Just not on wheels. And honestly, I had hundreds of hours in my own Avid as a tailwheel plane, as well as on wheel penetration skis, and never did I have an issue being able to land it. Also, fwiw - Just 3 weeks earlier I had completed 28 hours of instruction in an S2 Pitts biplane and was complimented for my ability to handle the airplane.

So I was feeling pretty beat up having this little Avid Flyer kicking my butt. As a last ditch effort to figure out what was wrong with his plane, the builder suggested that there was a cam on the tailwheel that if removed would stop the tailwheel from swiveling, which he thought might help the situation? Admitting that I knew nothing about his Maule tailwheel, I very reluctantly agreed to try it just one more time (). And the only thing I can say about that experience is that it was absolutely amazing to see what one little screw holding a small aluminum cam plate on a tailwheel could do for an airplane. That little Avid Flyer went from a raging monster to a really nice handling, predictable tailwheel airplane that handled like it should. It was much nicer than the Cub I trained in, or the Citabria my other friend let me fly occassionally. I could hardly believe it could be that simple.

The rest of that story goes like this; Now that the Avid was handling properly (but we didn't know what was wrong with the tailwheel so I told the owner to never put that cam back in unless he wanted some real excitement), I proceeded to teach his flight instructor how to fly the Avid so he could in turn train the builder how to fly in his own airplane. That instructor and I had a blast flying the Avid together for about 4 hours. He had never flown an Avid before, but after putting that one through the wringer, the more he flew it the more impresssed he became. I can't tell you how many take offs and landings we did, but there were a lot of them. He was extremely complimentary of the ground handling of the Avid compared to the "sloppy feeling J5" (his comment) he was instructing in at the time for tailwheel endorsements. After he was done with my dual, he did a bunch more hours on his own to satisfy his insurance company and then started training the builder towards his license.

All was going extrememly well with the training until one day when the instructor asked the builder why the tailwheel wouldn't swivel? The owner explained to him our previous situation, but the instructor said he should put it back in as he was confident he could handle whatever it was doing. So the builder did.

It was later that afternoon while they were practicing landings, the student lost control of the airplane just as the tailwheel touched, and they found themselves going across the runway sideways, 90 degrees . The instructor said he hit WOT (again no time for full opposite rudder and brake) as there was no saving it so he attempted to fly away crossways on the runway to avoid what he knew otherwise would have been a monstrous groundloop . The Avid having a high power to weight ratio did fly, but not soon enough. It was mid winter and there were high snow banks on the edges of the runway, and even though the Avid was beginning to fly out of trouble, the main gear wheels hit the top of the snowbank, flipping the plane completely on its back. The Avid was so severely damaged it needed wing repairs, strut replacement, and a new fuselage.

I am pretty convinced that if the instructor didn't have a father that is known as a extremely thorough aircraft mechanic, that instructor today would still believe that he had just screwed up that day by not saving the situatiion from the student. And so would have I. Heck, the whole local aviation community was critical of the instructor for his "screw up". (reminder to self; never be so judgmental, especially of your friends)

But his father found the problem after the NTSB left by just leveling the fuselage and inspecting operation of that tailwheel. And sure enough, with that cam reinstalled it unlocked with no weight on it. He knew it should require inertia and weight while on the ground to unlock it. So the instructor, the builder, myself and the father checked and rechecked that tailwheel with the cam in and out until we were all convinced that it was the problem. Avid at that time was consulted, but denied others having the problem. So we talked with Maule only to learn that they want the pivot pin on the tailwheel to be level, not canted forward or back when the aircraft is level, and for the rudder not to have so much throw that the deflection impact on the tailwheel arm can "shock" the tailwheel mechanism, unlocking it.

Now personally, I don't think any tailwheel should unlock in flight, regardless of how you have it "set up". So I'm not overly fond of Maule tailwheels for that reason. But again, some work just fine on some of our Kitfox fleet. But I feel sorry for the guys that have either wrecked their Kitfoxes because of that, or think of themselves as failures because they just can't fly a tailwheel. I know that has been the case with many over the years, and this is truly sad knowing there was probably a high percentage of those planes just had a tailwheel problem.

I agree with the comment about liking a swivel tailwheel feature. And in fact, there shouldn't be any reason you can't have a tailwheel that will swivel only on the ground. But when it breaks loose in the air, and you don't know that happened, you're not likely to have a good day.

There's a reason some airplanes use a tailwheel that locks in a straight position. In a Pitts S1 if you land on a narrow runway and your tailwheel is at all crooked, because the airplane is so short coupled and lands fast you will be off the edge of the runway before you will even have time to react. So many install a locking tailwheel to avoid that issue.

The Highlander group has learned that they don't like Maule tailwheels either after experiencing problems like I desribed (A friend just sold his Highlander with a Maule tailwheel to a guy who is using a tailwheel instructor for his transition training. The instructor ignored my advice about the Maule, but after scaring the bejesus out of himself with the Maule, that Highlander is now sporting a nosewheel...what a shame when it was easily fixed while still keeping it a tailwheel airplane ) . Now the Highlander group recommend a tailwheel that is fully lockable (Jim Pekola tundra tailwheel as I recall). Ironically, when its not locked it doesn't even use chains to connect to the rudder for steering. Rather it centers on a detent in the air, and on the ground you have to apply brakes to make it turn left or right. I've flown one and I liked it. Other people that have flown it say it is almost as easy as a trike, and I mostly agree. It will always be a taildragger, but it is a really easy one with that tailwheel.

So, a Kitfox should not be a difficult to fly taildragger. Yes it is short coupled and quick compared to some other aircraft. But it shouldn't be a handful. If it is, check your tailwheel over closely. Especially if it's a Maule. And try it with the cam removed to see if the plane handles better. If it doesn't, then either there is something else wrong with your Kitfox, or you may need more training. But never just think it is you without first verifying the tailwheel working properly.

Paul

I see your point. I've been slowly becoming acquainted with my Type III with a Maul TW. I have to admit, I've made some really spectacular landings, some bordering on almost an what some might consider an aerobatic maneuver. Allowing the airplane to yaw unchecked, will most certainly result in a GL, however, when everything else fails, there's always brakes. I have never considered removing the cam, I guess I like the full swivel capability too much.

Part of TW training is learning to deal with the monster. When I was a 16 year old kid, flying a Cub, I made a lot of crazy landings, but all my 60 years of flying, I've never ground looped one yet. I can't even phantom an experienced instructor putting an airplane over on it's back due to a tail wheel becoming unlocked.

Cheers,

[Av8r3400]

Paul - This was turning into a very good, very informative thread on the merits of tailwheels. I wanted to make it something that can be searched for, for future reference.

S'all good.

[av8rps]

What Larry is saying here describes the problem well. The only thing I disagree with is that with experience you can learn to overcome the problem. You can't. You cannot train enough to be able to handle this problem.

I have flown airplanes with that tailwheel when it unlocked in flight (unknown to me at the time). And I will tell you even with a COUPLE THOUSAND HOURS in this type of an airplane, and mentally being on top of my game because it was a test flight, I was very lucky to get the plane back on the ground in one piece. Remove the swivel option by taking that cam out of the tailwheel as Larry described so well, and those same airplanes became extremely easy (by comparison) to fly.

So what's so wrong with Maule tailwheels? I'm not really sure, and maybe nothing if set up correctly (although I do have to admit that Maule aircraft are known quite well by insurance companies for ground loops....hmmm?)

Anyhow, on the Kitfox it is relatively easy to see if they are set up properly. Just put a sawhorse under the tail of the airplane until it is level and the tailwheel is hanging with no weight on it. Then while having one person by the tail, have another person go in the cabin and push the rudder pedals back and forth full deflection, while the person at the tail checks to see if the tailwheel unlocks (or will swivel freely). The tailwheel should NEVER unlock without weight on it...

It should only unlock when there is weight on it and inertia is applied one way or another to make it unlock. In other words, only on the ground. (aside from wanting it to swivel to push backwards into a hangar, or to turn 180 degrees really sharp into a parking space, why else would you want a tailwheel to fully swivel?)

Typically when I've found them to unlock without weight on them they unlock left more than than they do right. I'm not sure why that is, but it's not good either way when you are coming in for a landing and unknown to the pilot the tailwheel is now deflected 90 degrees from the direction the airplane is going. You can bet as soon as that tail hits the ground that you are going to go hard left (or right) just as if you had the rudder pedal to the floor and a brake locked. And because the Kitfox is a relatively short airplane, you will find yourself going off the runway at a 90 degree angle to the direction you were traveling just a second ago. If you're really lucky and very proficient, you might be able to fly away across the width of the runway (with lots of power). But much more likely, you will find yourself in one hell of a ground loop, typically burying the outboard wing into the ground while twisting and tearing at the rest of the airplane, which many times results in everything, the wings, the struts, the tail, and the fuselage being bent and twisted from the violent forces associated with such a quick direction change.

I'll fly a Maule tailwheel, but only with the swivel feature disabled. And if it isn't disabled then I will do a thorough check to see if it can be unlocked without weight on it.

Unfortunately because many Kitfox owners have never had a problem with their Maule tailwheel (they're blessed in my opinion), they can't understand how so many guys can groundloop their airplanes? And for those that have, they probably are questioning their own abilities as a tailwheel pilot, when it is probably more likely there was something wrong with their airplane.

The main issue with Maul wheels is their propensity to prematurely unlock, going full swivel, if not set up perfectly.

In an early Kitfox (1-4), if the tail unlocks when you aren't expecting it, the plane will come around (ground loop). That is a guarantee. Especially with an inexperienced pilot. These planes are short coupled and quick on the controls.

It is highly recommended that until you gain a good level of experience, you remove the unlocking cam plate off the wheel keeping it locked to the steering chains.

I kept the cam off until I had 100 hours in my plane. By then I felt I had enough experience to handle it. Last summer I still looped my plane (luckily at a slow speed with no damage!) when the wheel unlocked unexpectedly.