problem with steering on the ground
 

I had a thunder tiger trainer .25, i crashed it and repaired it (made it into a taildragger), and flew it again and decided to retire it from flying, but now that there is 3+ft of snow i decided to run it around. i put the skis on and went outside. The plane turns to the right, even if i give it full left rudder. I know that the counterclockwise rotation of the prop is causing this, but is there anyway to make it so that I can turn left?

RE: problem with steering on the ground
 

Move to Florida or Tx, we don't have that problem down here ;)


Just kidding, you might want to try the rudder that attaches to the floats. I don't know how effective that would be in snow, but works very well in water.

RE: problem with steering on the ground
 

Make sure the skis are properly aligned with the LG - not angled slightly or "wobbley" on the axle.

Also check the bottom of the skis. Many of them have a small "keel" extending down about 1/8" or an indent extending up to provide better lateral control on snow. When I used to fly in the winter I had steering problems with perfectly flat bottom skis, when I changed to the keel/indent type the steering problems were, for the most part, gone.

Hope this is some help.

RE: problem with steering on the ground
 

Apply throttle slowly.
You should see a marked improvement

RE: problem with steering on the ground
 

If the plane turns to the right it's not the engine torque or the prop. So it's most likely that the skiis are out of alignment.

As Campy said, a keel on the bottom of the skiis would help.
Dennis-

RE: problem with steering on the ground
 

Hello; I don't know how much help this will be with your problem but, one thing I have noticed with tail draggers is that the tail wheel might get mis-aligned with the rudder so that everything is going along fine until the tail wheel lifts, then the pilot has to make a rudder correction to keep the plane going straight down the runway. If the pilot manages to take off, the plane fliesw great in the air but as it comes in to land it might lurch as the tail wheel touches down.

I have a float plane that has one float that floats lower in the water then the other, it's a quarter scale Spacewalker. It always needs a little left rudder to balance out and go straight, but once in the air the rudder is neutral. Other experienced pilots have flown it and had trouble with this peculiarity, but when I explain the problem most pilots compensate for it and have no trouble, but I have found that some otherwise excellent pilots just can't get this plane off the water.

My experience flying off snow (white water) has been that it's hard to turn unless your planing.