Wheel and Spinner choice
 

I like the more realistic rubber wheels for looks but I'm thinking the foam wheels will be lighter?
These are for my Tiger 60 trike setup always flying off not the greatest grass runway.
I'll be running a TTPro .61

Any pro's or con's with either choice?



Spinner choice is a question of color. I'm noticing on my plane with a yellow spinner the electric starter is leaving a white ring on the nose of the spinner.
Is this normal or am I doing something wrong when starting? Point being, if I got a white spinner it wouldnt show as much... I was thinking of a blue spinner on my current project.



As you can see I'm getting down to the finishing choices which means I'm almost done with this puppy!


Thanks

Steve

RE: Wheel and Spinner choice
 

Steve,

The foam tires are definitely lighter than their rubber counterparts. You can purchase foam tires with the tread lines in them if you want. Personally since all but two of my airplanes not scale I choose not to worry about it. I select tire size with consideration of prop clearance and the ability to more easily fly off our grass strip.

Take a look at using a silicone rubber cone for your starter it causes less of a buildup on the spinner. I clean my spinners after several flights. If the spinner is not aluminum its going to wear to some extent from use with a starter. The only other choice is using a chicken stick.

RE: Wheel and Spinner choice
 

Personally I don't like using foam wheels. Even off of grass they get torn up quickly and start falling apart. The other problem I have with them is that they will soak up and fuel or exhaust residue that gets on them, and there is no way to get that back out. It's there for the life of the wheel. Yes, they are a bit lighter than rubber wheels, but on a glow powered plane it's usually very difficult to tell the difference between the two.

For your spinner it may be an issue of how you are using the starter. What usually causes that ring on the spinner is when your starter slips while starting the plane. The best thing you can do to avoid this is follow these steps. Rotate the prop clockwise (yes, opposite of the starting direction) until it hits compression. Firmly grasp your plane. Place the starter on the spinner and push firmly against the spinner. And I mean "firmly". You don't want it to slip. Activate the starter. If the starter slips immediately stop. The little bit of free play you get from turning the prop clockwise give the starter a little bit of room to get up to speed before it hits the first compression stroke. Also, a fresh charge on your starter battery will help give it the "omph" it needs to turn through the compression. Or even a bigger battery if it just doesn't have the bacon you need to start it.

One other cause of the starter slipping is if the engine is over primed. If too much fuel is in the engine then it will hydro-lock when you go to start it. If this is happening it's not going to matter how strong of a starter you have the engine is going to stop spinning and your starter will slip. To prevent this reduce the amount you are priming the engine prior to starting it.

Ken

RE: Wheel and Spinner choice
 

Take a look at Sullivan SkyLite wheels, they are my favorites - Light, yet durable.

http://www3.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin...lite&search=Go

RE: Wheel and Spinner choice
 

I second that, and they look great too!