Dave,
First, I should have noted that I've never flown a Cub with toe brakes, so I was speaking of brake systems in general terms, not specific to one airplane or another.
Dave, I concur with your "mechanic" argument. Not everyone has that ability, though. I worked for an outfit that owned a fleet of aircraft, that were maintained by a number of maintainers and facilities. Management held varying opinions on what was "airworthy". Frankly, I never had a problem caused by heel brakes on those aircraft.
As one of my first instructors told me in response to the stock brakes on my PA-12: "You supposed to FLY the damn thing, not STOP it!!!!" He was VERY German, and a little emotional. I still installed hydraulic brakes later. My next airplane was a 90 hp J-3, which in winter wore Goodyear AIrwheels, and possessed stock mechanical brakes. Which is to say that, for the most part, the heel brakes were simply a place to rest your heels 8) . If you pressed REALLY hard on them, you could sorta tell there was something going on. I spent a lot of time on beaches with that airplane, and never saw much problem with the brakes. I didn't particularly care for them, but they were pretty irrelevant, in any case.
But, again, try sitting in the back of an airplane with heel brakes in a training environment. You're following the student's control movements, and you have to wait patiently for the student to recognize and try to fix something BEFORE you intercede. In that case, reaching for that heel brake can be a pretty interesting program at the very last moment. And, it's not intuitive for the student, who trained in airplanes with toe brakes.
My worst heel brake story: A student and I were flying a Cub, he started some pretty enthusiastic swerving, but was catching them in time, and getting on top of it. Unfortunately, he was wearing slip on shoes, and during one enthusiastic rudder deflection, his foot slid partially out of his shoe, and the back of the shoe caught between the heel brake and the rudder pedal--ie: near full rudder deflection. I stood on the brakes, then tried to figure out what the hey happened.
In general flying, I simply don't care for heel brakes. For instructing, I simply hate them.
As to feel, as Bill describes, sorry, but I've flown so many years wearing hip boots, bunny boots, etc, that "feeling" the rudder inputs this precisely just isnt' in my play book. So, what---You fly around barefoot, Bill :lol: ??
I just don't care for heel brakes, for the reasons noted,, but to each his own. I don't find that precise braking is an issue with toe brakes, it's simply a matter of getting the feel for the system. As to the argument about keeping your heels on the floor, that's basically what I do with toe brake systems. If I need brake, I rotate my ankle and there's some brake.
One down side to toe brakes: Again, in a training environment, a dear old friend of mine who was a great instructor had a "student" get a 180 upside down with him instructing. My friends' words of wisdom afterwards: "There is simply nothing an instructor can do if a student puts those big size 14 boots on the tops of those pedals and pushes hard during a landing." THAT is now a briefing item every time I fly with someone, regardless of what type brakes you have.
Hey, this is all personal preference. I wouldn't CONVERT anything with heel brakes to toe brakes, or vice versa. I also wouldn't purchase or refuse to purchase an airplane because it had one or the other.
And, in my world, I often don't get to make the choice.
Run what ya brung, folks.
MTV
