I agree with Bobby in that the idle speed may contribute to ground loops. My Jabiru is supposed to idle at 1000 rpm which caused an excessively long roll out after touch down. I backed the idle down to 800 rpm and reduced my ground roll by about 200 feet. A soft rubber stop holds it at 1000 rpm and if I pull back hard on the throttle it comes back to 800 rpm.
On May 1st 2006 I took my brother in law for ride. After an hour or so, 5 miles out he says that he needs to get on the ground ASAP as he is feeling woozy. Then on short finals he starts loosing his breakfast into my hat (I gave him my hat when turning finals). On roll out I ground looped at about 20 kph. My concentration was else where and I may not have pulled the throttle back the extra 200 rpm which may have contributed to my ground looping. Bent the tail wheel assembly and cracked one wheel faring. Back in the air last weekend. I may now look at my idle setup as I don't want to do that again. Maybe the rubber block idea was not such a good idea. Just sharing my thoughts. Regards Barry Kruyssen Cairns, Australia k...@bigpond.com http://www.users.bigpond.com/kr2/kr2.htm -----Original Message----- From: krnet-boun...@mylist.net [mailto:krnet-boun...@mylist.net] On Behalf Of bo...@hatconversions.com Sent: Tuesday, 9 May 2006 11:36 AM To: KRnet Subject: Re: KR> VW 2180 Idle Guys, Two different guys brought Kitfoxes to me in Fla because they said they were really prone to ground loop. The one guy had tore up a wing tip. I checked all the usual suspects, wheel alignment, etc, and when I couldn't find a problem, I finally flew both of them. They both had Rotax 912's in them that wouldn't idle slow. When you landed you were trying to overcome the additional power with the brakes, and had trouble keeping the tail down with the brakes and the additional airflow under the tail....Ideal set up to either get it up on its nose or have a groundloop. In my opinion, I would idle them as low as it can go before take off. On final with the prop windmilling, it's not going to quit anyway. Bobby
