RE: Wheels Spinners

regards stabilising fins on wheels. if you had one, to stop the wheel spinning, it would cease wheel spin, but would also place undue strain on the axle of the wheel, since of course anything like a fin-even plate shapes, will generate lift at speed, thus having the tendancy, through the lifts resultant force, to push the wheel upwards, and coincedentally inwards.

if you had spoked fins on the wheel hubs, you would get a water wheel effect, much the same way as axial flow compressor turbines work, because the air would cascade through the spokes, bringing with it, different areas of high/low pressure, promoting centripetal motion, ok at some point the air would be going soo fast as to stop the wheel hub spinning.

the wheels in either of these configurations would increase drag, and therefore absorb more energy, increasing take off runs. the wheel does rotate slowly when lowered inflight because of the airflow, but this is not significant enough, as would be with stabilising fins to cause drag problems.

it is almost a good idea to have your wheels spinning slowly- but not stationary, when you land because, on touch down the wheels will absorb some energy in accelerating to the speed of the aircraft, in effect HELPING to slow it down. fin stabilised wheels would be very hard to balance due to varying airflows over the fuselage and imperfections in weight and construction, during manufacturing!!

if you really want motionless wheels on touch down, why not have a microswitch, as is done with weapons arming and even radar activation on some aircraft that keeps the wheel brakes engaged until 1kg of upward force is felt on the wheels, activating the microswitch which disengages the brakes. this will not affect the aircrafts aerodynamic performance while giving the desired result.

coanda