well, yes but if you plan your u-turns carefully it's not too badOriginally Posted by Jerrytex
we had about a 40 foot turn radius when "swivel-disabled"
works out fine most of the time
Re: Tailwheel a *****cat on grass but a wild animal on pavement
well, yes but if you plan your u-turns carefully it's not too bad
we had about a 40 foot turn radius when "swivel-disabled"
works out fine most of the time
Re: Tailwheel a *****cat on grass but a wild animal on pavement
Using one brake, and pushing forward on the joystick and a blast of throttle will probably make it come around faster as well. Don't go crazy on it though. Jim Chuk
Re: Tailwheel a *****cat on grass but a wild animal on pavement
Wow, so many anti-Maule people out there. If I build another I'm putting a
Maule on it again just to be different. I'll even make it a point to adjust it
correctly! What a hoot. Just think, no shimmy, no ground loop-itis, and
all with a Maule.
the ONLY way a Maule is unlocking if you push on the pedals, is because it's
set up wrong. If you are disabling the unlock, then guess what you have got
the wrong ratio of arms, and the tailwheel is turning too much in relation to
the rudder. That's what's happening. It's NOT because the Maule is bad, it's
the guy that set it up is the problem, he didn't understand how it works.
There are certainly better tailwheels than the Maule, but the Maule is not
bad. It's just commonly setup incorrectly.
FWIW, I tend to like Scott tailwheels ... But I own a Maule.
Jeff
Re: Tailwheel a *****cat on grass but a wild animal on pavement
I don't get it! I know of several guys who purposely installed their tailwheels without the locking mechanism, so the wheel is free castering ALL the time. they seem to have no trouble at all. They are probably not Maule tailwheels, but if free castering on landing were the only issue then those guys would be groundlooping on every landing.
Jim Ott
Portland, OR
Kitfox SS7 flying
Rotax 912ULS
Re: Tailwheel a *****cat on grass but a wild animal on pavement
Actually these days, if you don't have the correct app on your phone you'll
ground loop ...
Re: Tailwheel a *****cat on grass but a wild animal on pavement
I didn't mean to scare all you Maule tailwheel owners. But I am very glad I got your attention so you are at least aware of what can happen, and why. For the record, I still agree with Jeff that if they are set up properly they can work well. Only problem is that no one seems to know what the magic formula is to set one up so it works propely? Bud Davissons article pretty much proves that Maule can't be counted on to tell you. And if you don't believe that, then someone needs to tell me why Maules are so well known for ground loops and so hard to insure unless they are tri-gear versions? Probably what we should do is to have Jeff take measurements from his (full deflection of rudder in degrees both ways, spring lengths, angle of pivot shaft on the ground and in flight position, angle of tailwheel spring in relationship to fuselage, etc, etc). And also to have Jeff do the test with the airplane leveled to see if he can get his to unlock with full rudder deflection. I'm guessing as happy as he is with his that his will not unlock unless it is on the ground and is being moved by inertia, the way a tailwheel is supposed to work. My personal belief is that airplanes with less rudder throw (e.g. 20 degrees vs 30) will make all the difference in if it works right or not. Springs / chains being too tight would be my guess at the 2nd biggest problem for making the tailwheel unlock in flight. But again, that is just what I think causes the issue.
But in the meantime you guys with Maule tailwheels can just remove the full swivel feature by removing one screw and that cam plate. That simple task will guarantee your Maule tw is never going to unlock in flight. Remember, I myself have a Maule tw on my Highlander. It was such a monster to handle on pavement that two of my friends who are high time tailwheel guys (who incidentally have time in their good handling tailwheel Highlanders, but they were not Maule tw equipped) that I finally just pulled the cam plate and tamed it way down. And if you saw how slopped out that tailwheel is after only 270 hours, you'd probably wonder why anyone buys a Maule tailwheel? They are nowhere near as durable as they appear. Unfortununately that tailwheel on my Highlander was just as bad when it was new, so I doubt rebuilding it will help at all.
But my real point is, with the fullswivel feature disabled the Maule tailwheel is much more manageable. The only thing you won't like after removing the cam plate is pushing it around as the tailwheell will either need to be moved with a tow bar, or the plane will need the tail lifted to push it backwards. I consider that a small price to avoid potentially destroying your airplane and/or hurting yourself.
Re: Tailwheel a *****cat on grass but a wild animal on pavement
Have you ever flown a full castering tailwheel like you describe? I have, and I will tell you they are supposed to have a self centering detent to keep them straight when landing as without that they are more than a handful. If you truly have one with no centering detent, any airplane landing faster than 25 mph is going to have real issues, especially on hard surface runways. There's a reason a lot of short coupled taildraggers use locking tailwheels...
Re: Tailwheel a *****cat on grass but a wild animal on pavement
That's funny
Re: Tailwheel a *****cat on grass but a wild animal on pavement
At the risk of getting off topic,re bungees
Saggy bungys wont effect ground handling much but replacing sooner rather than later would be a good idea(there is a good video tutorial on You tube)don't make the safety cables too short(I think this has been well covered in this forum)
Re: Tailwheel a *****cat on grass but a wild animal on pavement
I really don't mean to scare you into giving up what could be a Maule tailwheel that may have nothing wrong with it. The easiest way for you to know if there is anything wrong with your Maule tw is to level fuselage and do a full deflection rudder test to see if you can get your tailwheel to unlock. Another simple way for you to know is to just pull off that cam plate and then go out and practice landings. If you find your airplane easier than ever to land, you've got a problem with your tailwheel set up, or the tailwheel itself is bad. Some guys have flown with bad tailwheels for years. And some are just really great pilots that have adapted to the idiosyncracies of the Maule, believing their little homebuilt is just a bit harder to land tban they'd prefer. They don't even know the difference
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