peachpilot:
Dear Nick, can you put some figures together to prove your statement ?
Skids are usually round, therefore the bit that actually touches the ground is very narrow, whereas tyres are able to squish down a bit meaning the bit touching the ground is a lot wider than a skid.
If your skids had flat bottoms, then they would absolutely have more surface area touching the ground.
Lets say a skid is 1.5m long and only 3mm of the skid touches the ground, then the surface area for one skid is 1.5 x 0.003 = 0.0045 SqM.
Guessing at the size of a tyre (I have only had the pleasure of flying machines with skids - Little old Master-vegas, NZ doesn't usually see anything bigger than a five-hundie!) for the same sized machine that would have 1.5m skids, I would say they would be roughly 80mm wide, and once the weight of the machine was on them, it would be fair to say that you would get that same area front to back as well, giving us 0.08 x 0.08 = 0.0064 - and you would usually expect to have more wheels than skids.
So...after all that bollicks, I guess there isn't really that much difference.
God, I'm soooo boring sometimes
