Today I took 84A out for the second flight for the engine break-in. Flew great, purred like a kitten. I flew for an uneventful 1.6 and came back in for a landing on 16, winds 09 at 5. Came in with a little power, left wing down right rudder, ballooned just a little, corrected and three pointed it, and pulled the throttle to ground idle. Then all hell broke loose! It started a hard veer to the left even though I had almost full right rudder ( I didn't seem to have any appreciable drift when I touched down). Just when I thought I was going to ground loop ( I was pulling the yoke into my chest and had full right rudder and brake) it straightened out just a little and then I thought I was just going to take out a taxi light
![Shocked 8O](./images/smilies/icon_eek.gif)
. I over corrected that to find myself in the beginnings of a right ground loop. Full brakes and left rudder straightened me out, still on the runway, in one piece.
Granted this was only my second landing in my 170 in almost a year but this was ridiculous
![Rolling Eyes :roll:](./images/smilies/icon_rolleyes.gif)
! I ran into a problem like this a year or two ago when my tailwheel chains got caught on the bracket that is on the leaf spring ( I think it is labeled the tailwheel steering chain guard). The bolt is on the bottom and it was pulling the tailwheel so that when I landed it would make me veer before breaking over. I think it should be on the top of the leaf spring.
I guess the point of this is to ask for input. In the 175 hours I have flown this 170 I have always thought it squirrelly compared to the few other tailwheel airplanes that I have flown. This is the only one that I have flown that I don't feel like I have absolute positive control on wheel landings (hard to keep straight) and I have probably done 1000 landings in it over the past three years ( I practice T&Gs a lot).
Are there other things I should be looking at? Toe-in/Toe-out?
I am going to fast taxi up and down the runway a few times tomorrow to see if anything is out of the ordinary. I really don't want to spend a lot of time on the ground since I only have a couple of hours on the engine and I am still trying to break it in. Any ideas or experiences would be appreciated.
David