Indeed, there is no substitute for a good quality main tyre. Even more
important is a good quality tube. If you can get one... Kestrel is Tost
6 ply + goodyear inner - but the tail wheel is not available in similar
durability.

On the other hand, the tightly shrouded modification to add a tail wheel
on my Cirrus was 30+ years old and made it very inconvenient to access
to inflate. Nothing to keep standard.

Talking of shock absorbtion etc - there is the horrible sound of your
glass tail end getting ground off on landing because the dinky little
tyre got punctured on take off. Personally, once was enough to motivate
me to look for a better solution.

If yours is US based and not experimental, maybe you have to live with
the results. In my and quite a few other folks experience the foam
filled tail wheel has been a well proven, good solution.


On 2011/07/06 03:45 PM, aerodyne wrote:
I try to avoid making even minor changes to my glider - reminds me to
much of my day job, where I would naturally consider effects of
flotation, shock absorbtion, material properties, and yes,
certification.

The tail tire of my open cirrus had many flats in the past, various
remedies were tried such as pieces of bike tire installed inside, etc.
using the cheap import tires definitly did not help. What solved the
problem was to use the BEST aircraft tire I could find (Tost 6 ply),
AND seal the openings between the valve stem to prevent debris from
getting inside. Some of the thorns were actually entering this way.

aerodyne

--
Bruce Greeff
T59D #1771