The Aviation Products tailwheel is shown at http://home.hiwaay.net/~langford/misc/05120360m.jpg. This is not really a proper installation because vertical axis of rotation is too far inclined. It should be more like 5-15 degrees, and what I have is about 30 degrees. These tailwheels come in about three different angles, so my advice would be to fit a tailwheel spring first, make careful meauresments, and order the one you need. I've been reluctant to "fix" it because that would put the tailwheel down further, making my landing speed even higher due to the reduced angle before the tailwheel touches down. The yellow tailspring is not the original, but one that Larry Flesner sent me that I believe he got from a junk yard. It's spring steel, and I believe it's 5/16" thick, but it was still too springy with my rough tailwheel first landings that I do occasionally while trying to get the airplane into my short runway. The 1/8" thick 4130 spring on top is a sort of limiting stiffener which at least prevents the tailwheel from hitting the rudder, which is what it did before it was installed. Also note that there's a quarter inch piece of rubber between the top spring and the tailwheel block, placed there to reduce noise transmission from the tailwheel while taxiing.
Sorry I didn't bother to clean this up before I took the photo, but was answering the same question for somebody a few months ago and snapped this to send to them. This is what my tailwheel looks like after over 2000 hard landings. One other thing to notice about this is the low angle between the rudder and tailwheel cables, as Larry was mentioning. I have no springs, just a direct connection made inside the fuselage, with turnbuckles so that the tailwheel can be perfectly aligned with the rudder. There is slight slack on the tailwheel, and the "spring" is a miniature bungee cord pulling the two opposite tailwheel cables together to keep them from rattling due to wind forces on the cables outside. There's more on my main gear and alignment at http://home.hiwaay.net/~langford/kgear.html . This gear setup has served me well, and like Larry, I can't imagine how it could handle any better. Troy Petteway, who's flown a lot of KRs, declared mine to be the best ground handling KR he'd ever taxied. He's also owned and flown a LOT of more traditional tailwheel planes, and says in general that the KR has better ground handling than anything out there. If setup up properly, KR ground handling is nothing to fear. I've never "flown" X-plane, but my guess would be it'd be a great place to pick up bad habits that have no relation to flying the real thing... Mark Langford N56ML "at" hiwaay.net website at http://www.N56ML.com --------------------------------------------------------
