On Wednesday, December 12, 2012 7:41:20 PM UTC-7, bumper wrote:
One of Eric's points earlier was the added drag most full castering tailwheels would present. On his ASH26E, the steerable tailwheel is limited in it's steering range to about 30 degrees to each side. Thus the tailwheel fairing can have a reasonably small opening and the extended part of the tailwheel presents minimal drag.



In order to fully caster, the tailwheel structure would either have to extend out far enough, or the boom would have to be fat to accomodate complete rotation.



Course the tailwheel could be retractable . . . more complex and expensive. Cost/ benefit?



bumper

Well, that's a point. As I imagine it, the tailwheel would extend only 5mm further than one of those breakaway rubber things with a skate wheel. That far back, the boundary layer is pretty thick so not much extra drag - probably less than an open air scoop.

This is not one of those things for retrofit - the 337 field approval hassle wouldn't be worth it but it would be a nice feature on a new glider or an experimental. The idea isn't for taxiing, it's just to make it easier to push the glider off the runway without running to get a tail dolly. Of course, nothing in the idea would prevent using a tail dolly for really rough ground.