Dave Eadsforth wrote:

In article , Guy Alcala
writes

snip

Supermarine tried two different designs, a single wheel and one with dual wheels
(side by side). The latter tended to get clogged with mud, so they went with
the
single.

Guy

snip

A double wheel, like the Mosquito, was it also an anti-shimmy measure?

None of the sources I have give the reasoning behind it, just that the a/c was tried
with single and dual tailwheels. Assuming the drawings are to the same scale, the
dual tires were smaller diameter than the single, around 2/3 to 3/4 of the larger
one. Ernie Mansbridge, who was Supermarine's tech. rep during the prototype service
trials by the RAF, reported the following on 6 March 1937:

"The split tail wheel has been fitted for today's flights. The pilots noted the lack
of bouncing tendency, but on the second flight the wheels were completely locked by
mud and could not be revolved until the mud had been dug out from between the
wheels."

Price writes "This type of tail wheel was not fitted again, and from then on the
single-wheel Dunlop type was used."

Guy