Dutch,

Have you considered an after market tail wheel that doesn't rely on the rundder for all of it's support? I use Sullivan tail wheels on a lot of my bigger planes. They attach to the bottom of the fuse and take all of the pressure off of the rudder. I was in a hurry to get Twist #2 off of the ground and didn't have a Sullivan on hand, so I am using the stock set up and it is holding up fine. Thought I would mention it because it would be a fun and easy mod to do to your baby at this time.


I belong to 2 flying clubs. One has a huge tar runway, and one has a 30 x 500 runway made from using landscape fabric stretched out and pinned down. When it gets ripped up or worn down, we just roll out another layer. It works great, and it is only about $800 to resurface the runway every 3 years. Now that we have several layers on, it makes for a very firm surface. I have torn a tail wheel off the exact same way you did on a loose piece of edge. I think it was a sullivan or similar, so I didn't even realize it until I heard the back of the plane scraping the ground as I was taxiing back to the pits.


Adam