View Single Post
  #33  
Old December 18th 19, 04:09 PM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
john firth
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 127
Default trailer sway mitigation TSM

On Monday, December 16, 2019 at 3:03:02 PM UTC-5, princiar wrote:
Anyone has experience towing a trailer with a car with the trailer sway mitigation installed?


An important factor is the tire slip angle; ratio of side to vertical load.
Radial tires have a low slip angle, which is what you need on the trailer
and rear tires plus stiffening the side walls with increased pressure.
Dropping the front pressure also helps.

Something to check; PIK factory trailers had a tip angle adjustment,
a large turnbuckle at the hitch. If this is not tightened down hard,
the side cheek flex allows an extra degree of freedom in the control loop.
The result is dramatically bad as I found out when I neglected this.

Weight at the trailer back is bad, as has been said. Many of us us
are in the habit of stuffing odd items into the rear end; bad idea.

Something to test; a rudder on the tail box controlled by a mechanism
driven by the car/trailer error angle. ( in the right sense of course)
Cables or fly-by-wire ?

John Firth