"Does anyone NOT have a steerable tailwheel? What would be the problem with a tailwheel limited to say 60 degrees of turn without being steerable? "
I can tell you from actual experience flying both, the free castering on the KR2. For the first 36 hours I had a free castering tailwheel and loved it, except for day one at the airport when the left brake had leaked down. I was moving the plane from one side of the ramp to the other side where over flow aircraft went for parking. I was only able to make right turns. Beverly thought I was playing on the ramp, and was laughing silly! I finally had to wait until it stopped its spinning top reaction, and go full power to be able to use rudder alone to turn the plane left, and then use LOTS of power for rudder authority to go left across the ramp. When I finally got close to the parking area, I shut it down and pushed it into the space. The second time that cured me of having a free castering tailwheel was when it had rained ALOT, and I had neglected to lubricate my tailwheel (it had a grease zert? fitting for lubing). After being cleared to land on runway 27 Left, the Tower told me to taxi straight ahead and stay with him. This took me directly to Romeo taxiway with no turns by going right off the end of the runway. This meant that I had no indications yet that my tailwheel had finally decided to have too much friction. Well, Romeo taxiway runs North and South, so it was not long until I found out that my tailwheel had decided to mutiny, and not return to straight taxi. I was making my fourth circuit around the circle and noticed traffic beginning to build up behind me, as Comair Academy and Falcon Flight School was in full gear training that day. Just then the Tower Operator anounced "Ok 96TA, you are now going South on Romeo?", at which I replied agitated,"Just having a little tailwheel issue." I heard his snicker as he replied," Okay just keep me advised." I then slammed the rudder left, and added full power which resulted in a momentary 45 degree turn right, then the tailwheel broke free, along with my seat back with a LOUD CRACK! With a near miss of a taxiway light and a journey into the grass, I was able to taxi back the rest of the way to the SouthWest ramp, which was on the other side of the airport at SFB without incident, and it was a good thing too because now thanks to the broken seat back, I was too short for the full rudder deflection due to the sagging seat back. I immediately sought out advice from the net as to what kinds of tailwheels everyone was running and settled on the small Matco steerable wheel from AS&S (no plug for AS&S just where I got it). I loved the fact that I could turn on a dime, and it was VERY controllable on the ground. BUT, with no redundancy if there is a brake problem, I do not recommend it. A free castering nose wheel I believe is alittle different in that there is less distance between the 3 wheels and so may be better responding to rudder only control if brakes are lost. For the tailwheel though, I can tell you that you will become the talk of the airport that day if something goes wrong! Colin Rainey brokerpi...@bellsouth.net N96TA
