Sonex turning radius

[kmacht]

Less angle of attack when doing a 3 point landing. A higher tail wheel will make it a little more difficult to be in a full stall right when touching down since the wings will be at less of an angle. May not make a big difference, don't know until you try it.

Keith
#554

[sonex892.]

Less angle of attack when doing a 3 point landing. A higher tail wheel will make it a little more difficult to be in a full stall right when touching down since the wings will be at less of an angle. May not make a big difference, don't know until you try it.

Keith
#554

I'm not sure even a standard tailwheel Sonex is fully stalled in the 3 point attitude. I have a homemade fully swivelling tailwheel with a pneumatic 6" Peter Anson type tailwheel. The noticeable differences are, better visibility lower noise while taxying and of course being able to spin around on a main wheel.

[Sonerai13]

Less angle of attack when doing a 3 point landing. A higher tail wheel will make it a little more difficult to be in a full stall right when touching down since the wings will be at less of an angle. May not make a big difference, don't know until you try it.

I'm not sure even a standard tailwheel Sonex is fully stalled in the 3 point attitude.

A Sonex/Onex/Xenos is nowhere near stall angle of attack when sitting at a 3-point deck angle. In fact, most tailwheel airplanes are not near a stall in the 3-point attitude. But it's especially true in the Sonex line. That's why it's important to recognize the 3-point attitude visually, so that you can find that attitude and fly the plane onto the runway. If you attempt to "stall" the plane on landing, your tailwheel will be about 3 feet lower than the main wheels when it touches the ground. That will make for a rather abrupt arrival rather than a 3-point landing.

[Gordon]

Flyboy Full Swivel Stance

Mike.......the problem with the higher tail stance is not a "nose over" issue. The problem is when doing a full stall 3 point landing.......you hit the tail wheel first...then the mains. It's not that big a deal, both my RV-6 and RV-7 would hit the tail wheel first.... a split second before the mains. I have 800 hours in taildragger RV's and can confirm this is not a problem. The early RV-4's were the worst for that until Van's came out with 3" longer main gear legs to combat that problem.

The "up side" as you mentioned is that you have a bit better view over the nose while taxing.

Gordon.......Onex......Hummel 2400

[lutorm]

The turn radius depends on how many G's you pull... ;-P

[GordonTurner]

Ahhh. Closing in on the answer. Turn radius is a function of TAS and G.

[Waiex 49]

I have added the Sonex disc brakes with toe pedals and independent left/right master cylinders. This was, in my opinion, a major improvement over the stock "pull on the lever" drum brake system with no independent brakes the "direct steering" stock setup.

While the Sonex disc brake kit has numerous shortcomings, required several modifications and was a general pain to install, I find the Sonex disc brakes actually work pretty well and the plane benefits from having independent left and right brakes and this can serve to tighten up the turning radius even with the direct drive tail wheel.

I now have the 6" full-swivel tail wheel setup from Fly Boy Accessories. The full swivel tail wheel is really nice and allows the plane to pretty much pivot on the main gear for very tight turns on the ground.

I already had a 6" tail wheel on my plane so that is what I went with when ordering up from Fly Boy Accessories. It really does put the tail up higher and lowers the nose. I can get away with this because my titanium tail wheel rod is bent from years of abuse and this lowers the tail back down a bit.

If you are interested in going this route, I would NOT recommend going with the 6" tail wheel. The 6" wheel gives too much lift for the tail and I believe the 4" setup would be much better suited for the Sonex / Waiex airframes. Fly Boys has a very nice 4" full swivel tail wheel setup for the Sonex.

I am very glad I upgraded the brakes and went to a full swivel tail wheel on my Waiex. While the Sonex disc brake kit sucks pretty badly, I made it work. If I had it to do over again I'd probably get wheels/brakes from another vendor. Having independent left/right brakes is really, really nice and worth the effort. I used the Hegar master cylinders from Spruce and toe brake pedals I bought off the forum. The tail wheel from Fly Boys Accessories is very nicely made and worth the extra $$.

Just my 2 cents worth. Hope to see you all at Osh!

Fly safe,

Don Bowen
The Outlaw Viking Waiex N49YX

[lstinthot]

Thanks for all the responses. I like the idea of toe brakes, just need to determine if I want to take the weight penalty as I am already going to be a bit on the heavy side. Just one more thing to add :)

[drPete]

Don,
I too have the Flyboys tail wheel but haven’t committed to the installation on my XenosB yet.
- Any weight & balance issues with the heavier assembly?
- Any appreciable tracking/wear issues with the slight difference in angle between the FB and Sonex tail wheel sockets?


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