The last time out with the Sabre I had an issue where I actually couldn't get it to take off in grass. The stock wheels are fairly small and they tended to dig into the grass instead of pushing it down and going over it. This prevented the plane from building enough speed for takeoff, even at full throttle.
The wheels tended to dig in on landings as well. This hasn't really been an issue ever since I upgraded the nose gear strut (as outlined
here). However, it does cause the plane to decelerate excessively fast, and most of the weight during deceleration is transferred to the nose wheel. This causes an undesirable effect where the plane rocks right and left on the nose wheel and each main wheel until the plane comes to rest, rather than a controlled deceleration with nose gear steering to keep it straight. A good example of the this behavior is seen at the end in the
Flight 42 onboard video.
In a simple effort to reduce this rocking effect, I upgraded the wheels. The Sabre came with 2.25" wheels all around, and now it has DuBro Super Lites all around, 2.75" for the mains, and 3" for the nose gear. I'm fairly certain this will prove to be an upgrade. I just hope the extra height added to the plane (and therefore CG above the ground) doesn't counter the advantage gained from the lower rolling resistance wheels.
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| Old vs. New Main Wheel (2.25" vs. 2.75") |
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| Old vs. New Nose Wheel (2.25" vs. 3") |
