Hello,

I've been reading a lot but haven't posted much. I thought somebody might be interested in some modifications I'm making to my Tower Trainer.

I bought this plane back in the spring and flew it all summer. It's a great little plane, flies really good. It's only problem is the landing gear... Too weak. You can't help but bounce three or four times no matter how good your landings are. I had read about the weak landing gear so was anticipating this before my first flight. After the first flight, put some PT-40 landing gear I had on it and had no problems with bounce landings after that.

Anyway I fly off some pretty rough grass and got tired of having to straighten the nose gear all the time so this winter I am converting it to a taildragger. I also cut off the cheek cowls. I don't see what purpose they serve other than adding weight and also I recently bought a stik and like how easy the engine is to work on with that airplane. Plus I was able to use a piece of the cheek cowl as a reinforcement for the new landing gear (see picture).

I'm trying to figure out how to do the tailwheel now... I bought a dubro tailwheel bracket and was going to put that on there, but it doesn't look really beefy enough... I guess I should have ordered the 60 size. Today I purchased a Sullivan tailwheel system from a LHS. It looks much better so I think I will put that on. Making it steerable is going to be kind of a pain. Would it work ok if I just left it free castering? Or should I lock it straight?

Anyone have any experience with tailwheel conversions?

I was planning on doing a bolt on wing as well, but after my experience with the stik I changed my mind. [&o] That's a subject for another post...