Hi Brad, write the check yet?
My experience with the Aero R-2800's is limited to installing, flying, and modifying a set of them on an A-1B for an owner who is very persnickity, and seeing them around and talking to owners who have modified them.
My experience with the Landes LW-2500 (
Landes
Wheel- 2500lb.-load rating per ski) is owning, flying, and modifying them on a PA-14 150 HP, and flying them on Gary Landes's personal 150HP PA-12.
Compared to Fli-Lites, AirGlides, or AWB's, the Aero's and Landes light. Both require welding to the gear legs and will benefit from 3" extended gear as I said before. Both have a little tailwheel on the ski that WILL throw gravel at the tail and aft fuselage of the airplane. I have dealt with both manufacturers, and
both are EASY to talk to and can be taken at their word.
The attach points for the Husky gear legs with the Aero's and the arm geometry do not allow the tire to be raised completely out of the snow, leaving about an inch, and the tiny 6.00x6 tire are tiny! and throw lots of gravel and don't float well on soft ground like a grass strip in the spring...at least you have the skis to sink-up to.
The newer Landes ski-tailwheels are far superior to the old Maule ski-tailwheel and leaf spring-style deal. Weight is saved, and drag is reduced. I wouldn't even consider flying the old style.
Either of these skis will not perform well in slush, mashed potatoes, crusty snow, or slightly packed snow where the tire is able to break through the surface and the forward portion of the tire is big drag.
Fluffy deep snow, uphill landings and downhill takeoff the Landes are great skis.
Let me get down to it. If the Aero's on the Husky could get the tire completely out of the snow, I
still wouldn't have them on that airplane. It's a heavy airplane, and the place where the Landes shine (deep fluffy snow), the Aero's 'tip-up' and plow. The forward-rear areas are all wrong, and the Aero needs more tail area to keep them from tipping up. I am not the first to voice this theory. A well-know skier-mountaneer-jet captain-mechanic-Cub owner with more back-country/mountain-pilot experiences and who has covered more ground than me and likely everyone else here, who operates a Cub on Aero R2800's has mentioned this and tried several ways to deal with it by adding more UHMW here, there, removing it here, there, trying bigger tires, back to 6x6's, mounting the tailwheel bracket on top of the ski instead of dragging it in the snow like the stock Aero, etc. agrees with this. He happens to for several years performed the maintenance on the most famous of Cub-driver's airplanes and played much in that pilots neck of the Alaskan Wrangell/Saint Elias wilderness with Aero R2800 skis while the other guy is on straight Landes's.
The great equalizer in the mountains is the uphill landing and downhill takeoff.
I simply cannot have a ski that will tip-up in the DDddeeeeeepp snow like those Aero's. This is where Landes's work great. This, plus the toughness of the glass ski makes my decision
Now, what if there was a relatively inexpensive retractable wheel/ski that could run 8.50x6 tires and had all the right proportions, no ski-tailwheel, and was 30% lighter per ski than, say Landes 2500 straight skis? NO compromises? That is what a guy needs.
DAVE