Our stock tailwheel fork has caused some issues. A couple years ago it was cracking at the bend, and the pivot bolt started dragging. I welded it back up, and welded on some reinforcements. Seemed ok until last weekend. Flying 2-up it was dragging really bad, especially when we hit a bump or crack. Here is the old fork with a brand new 4” wheel. With a worn wheel clearance was nil.
Here are the new and old fork together. The new one goes down about 12 degrees WRT the pivot. The old one seems to be going up a similar amount. I think it yielded.
I welded up those cracks, put some doublers going around the corner, and it didn’t crack anymore. But I think it still yielded as the angle of the forks vs the pivot is not perpendicular, and I think it should be. This picture below is the same bracket that I just took out.
We are pretty hard on our tailwheel. It would see a lot less abuse if we didn’t fly when it was windy, especially crosswindy. The Waiex really does not have enough rudder power. Anybody who grew up flying a cub family airplane will miss that rudder. So to compensate we really nail the tailwheel in a crosswind both for takeoff and landing.
This first crack was at less than 200 hours. Right now I’ve got 419.5 hours on the airplane.
As much as I need a castering Tailwheel, the aircraft are not designed for them. The runway here is narrow with a fairly sharp drop off on the edges and I am always careful where I turn around as a result.
But I knew this when I chose the Sonex and the design fits my mission. No complaints.
I took a closer look at the tailwheel fork I just replaced. It’s cracked through on the left side, inboard of where I welded it back together. The reinforcement that I welded on is the only thing holding that side together.
This is Peter Anson’s 6” tailwheel. I’ll get a final weight when I swap it but I’m pretty sure it weighs almost exactly the same as my current 4” tailwheel assembly.
I have the Anson 6" air tire tail wheel, and it’s much lighter than the 6" light weight solid wheel setup I had before. I also don’t get the canning sounds like others report on taxi. I really can’t complain, and I am happy with it.
The first one didn’t last long but it endured all the taxi runs I did before first flight so probably not a fair assessment. They are quite cheap to replace so I keep a couple of spare tires and tubes on hand.
