My experience with a castering tail wheel - Don't do it! The plane is totally dependent on rudder response. At low speed - no response, at high speed - good response

On take off roll you are at the mercy of the bumps on the ground.

Suddenly the rudder becomes effective and the plane jerks in response to the rudder control and there are a couple wild gyrations before lift off. I once cart wheeled over this situation.

Made the tail wheel steerable and the problem went away.

I have also sawn off a rudder and reinstalled using Robarts

Many ways to skin a cat. You can run linkage as you describe, caster the wheel but attach pen springs to each side to allow the rudder to steer it, drill a hole through the horizontal stab and make a "]" shaped bracket that has a tiller attached to the side of the rudder with a plywood plate, or stabbed into a drilled hole in the rudder and epoxied: remember you can offset the pivot as long as you center the tail-wheel with wheel-collars or proper bend(s).

Or just make a skid. Lots of real and model planes had/have no tail wheel. That's a luxury for paved airstrips.

I don't know what size of a plane you are dealing with, but if it is at least a 90 size you won't find a better one than the one Valley View RC ic selling

I use castering tail wheels all the time, it just takes practice and patience. A lot of times the normal tail wheels raise the tail up too high and that makes the plane look sick. I like to make take off's where you get the tail up and go down the runway a bit before lift off and if the tailwheel is allready high you can't do that . It is harder on a hard surface, but do able. Everyone to their own choice and skill level !! ENJOY !!! RED

my vote is for sullivan..easy to use and wont styress out the rudder.if I didnt have a scale tailwheel on my new plane I would install a sullivan tailwheel in a heartbeat ..

ahhhhh zepherhills what a great field! I come to the electric meets in the winter as I am in clearwater.you have a great place!

i use free castoring tailwheels on all of my planes for a few reasons..... they are cheap, they dont break and they work rather well. im flying on grass ro i cant speak of hard surfaces, tho i have flown in a large parkinglot before and not noticed a difference. about the only time when you have to be careful is in a strong cross wind, the tail will want to point into the wind, you correct this with throttle and rudder....works well enough for me

If you aren't going to use a steerable tail wheel, one that's fixed is easier to handle than one free to turn.

On grass, yes. On pavement or tarmac, no. Just my opinion, of course. Also depends on the model. I have had some that taxied fine as long as you flew the tail but not otherwise.

I got along better with fixed than a full swivel

I've always flown from grass

Try that when the rudder is on top of the horizontal stab and ahead of the elevator hinge line.

these are no problem to make steerable

Thank you cloudancer03, we try to have a great flyin and if all goes as planed we will have another Great one this year, hope you can be here. Any one else that's interested it will be in October, Electric only. ENJOY !!! RED

^^^

Thanks again guys !!   I get the idea.