What is the difference in ground handling of an aircraft which has either treaded or smooth wheels? (Dubro brand). What is best for a trainer aircraft and what type of wheel works best in what type of surface? Thank you.

I use the Dave Brown unthreaded foam wheels. Super light and durable

I use 3 to 3.5" Dave Brown lite foam wheels to get around better on grass. They have some small tread but I think it is just for looks. You can get treaded or untreaded foam wheels. I imagine the foam wheels wouldn't last long on paved runways. Would wear out pretty quick, so I'd go with rubber treaded for that. I'm not sure if treaded or untreaded makes any real difference in handling. The bigger wheels make a lot of difference in grass. Treaded wheels look nicer on a scale plane.

The untreaded Dave Brown foam wheels are wider than the threaded ones. For 3" and larger, I prefer the unthreaded ones because they don't bend sideways as much during ground handling. FWIW

I never noticed that Rajul. Good point.

I noticed that AFTER I ordered two pairs [] Anyway the weight savings are well worth it

There's not much difference in treaded vs untreaded...if that's the only difference in the wheel.

The foam wheels last longer on the paved runways... the pavement wears them down faster than the harder rubber, but the harder rubber is hollow... so you can't keep using them right down to the rim.

I mostly fly from dirt runway (sometimes it gets muddy) and concrete runway.What would you suggest in each case?

wheels that fit .

The foam wheels MIGHT be a bit of a cleanliness problem if you roll themthrough mud. they might absorb some of the mud and be a bit difficult to clean out. The smooth surface harder rubber untreaded style wheels would clean up easier.

Ihaven't done uch flying off mud... but fro the rusults off ice on blacktop... you probably won't see much difference no matter what wheel you use. (taildraggers a a pain on ice. the toe-in trick is useless then.)

I am mostly concerned with traction , what wheel gives the best traction?

The foam wheels give better traction on pavement. when you get off pavement... allkinds of stuff starts having different effects. (there are some things that will change how much traction you get on pavement too... as seen by the NASCAR guys playing with tire pressure and different rubber compositions...)

On CLEAN DRY pavement a non-treaded tire has more surface in contact with the pavement, thus more traction. On wet roads, the tread allows the tire to have a better grip because the water has an easier time getting out from under the part of the tire trying to contact the ground.

In mud.. the DEEP wide tread patterns are better (look at the herringbone pattern on a tractor tire.. purely designed for traction in soft ground and stiff mud.)

Generally... for a tread pattern t matter... you need a bgger tire than we are dealing with on the model arcraft. Our tread patterns are almost always for show.

I would say if you fly from grass or dirt use treaded tires. If not smooth tires is in order. I personally use whatever is at hand. I like Sullivan Lite Flights.

Mark Shuman

I use foamies for my planes below 8-9 lbs, and above that they start to get too soft. I use Sullivan lite wheels above 10 lbs

I have several tire types, foam/rubber and threaded and unthreaded. I really don't see much difference in any of them as far as traction in normal flying. Maybe there is one, I just haven't thought about it much. I have heard/seen the way foam tires can buckle a little on a sharp turn on pavement, but that just means less speed before turning so sharp. The only negative I have heard on threaded vs unthreaded is the threaded tires can pick up small debris that can make tire cleaning difficult. If you have a paved runway that gets real soft in hot weather, this can be a problem. Otherwise, I use what comes with the plane or what I have around the shop.

Ok, I'm curious, why do you care so much about traction on an airplane?

After all, the wheels are unpowered, it's not like a car where the power to move the car is transmitted though the wheels. Heck, the vast majority of RC planes don't even have brakes, so you can't be worried about getting better breaking.

If you're having problems with ground traking during a takeoff roll, there are piles of other things that are far more important than wheel traction, things like toe-in/out, caster/camber, how you use the rudder, wheel location vs CG, and so on.

In my experience, in the real world, you'll never notice the differnece on most RC aircraft between smooth and treaded wheels. Heck, I've even flown planes with mixed wheels, some smooth, some treaded. I've also flown with oddly bent gear, and all kinds of goofy setups at various times, and wheel tread is just a non-issue.

Foam vs rubber wheels, on the other hand, is a more useful topic. I didn't see anyone mention this: foam wheels can absorb water, and get a lot heavier than they started out. If you fly from a swampy field like I do, this can acutally be noticeable. (It's especially noticeable by the wife when she sees the muddy-wet splotches in the car that match the airplane's gear setup).

Foam wheels also sometimes don't cope with pavement well, but in general foam wheels are lighter, and lighter is always better. I did see someone manage to pull a foam tire off the hub making a tight turn on pavement while going rather fast. There are some light rubber-over-foam wheels out there, but I haven't sat around and weighed all the wheels that are out now, so I honestly don't know what is the lightest available. I did make a plane fly better by replacing some old Dubro rubber wheels that weighed a ton with some light foamies a while back. So, if you are flying off of grass, the lightest wheels you can find is a good thing. On pavement, light is still good, but replacing wheels is annoying.