I recently had the real world teach me a pretty valuable lesson. I have a small airplane that I like to operate in short, soft, and off field locations. Up until recently, all of those locations have been turf of some sort or another. A few weeks ago I discovered some gravel pits that had plenty of space for me to operate from and so I began landing and taking off from them. Initially I was worried about rocks getting kicked up by the tires and into the prop as my plane is in a pusher configuration but I regularly so my run-up from the gravel parking lot at the airport and I've never had a stone or any other debris cause any damage to the prop.
Well, on my last flight during my rollout, I went through a mud puddle with one of my main gear tires. You probably already know where I'm heading with this. I shut down, took some pictures and and proceeded to explore the pit a little bit on foot never giving a second thought to the mud puddle. It turns out that it coated the wheel with thick sticky mud that allowed the gravel to become stuck on the wheel. As I accelerated during my take off roll, I heard stones impacting the prop. Fortunately the airport was only a few minutes away and when I landed, I saw that I had several good sized nicks in the prop that will require repair before my next flight.
Aside from avoiding gravel pits all together (which is no fun) or making sure that I don't go through mud puddles any more (which I'll try but there's no guarantee) is there some sort of fender option that I could install over my wheels to prevent this from happening again?
Well, on my last flight during my rollout, I went through a mud puddle with one of my main gear tires. You probably already know where I'm heading with this. I shut down, took some pictures and and proceeded to explore the pit a little bit on foot never giving a second thought to the mud puddle. It turns out that it coated the wheel with thick sticky mud that allowed the gravel to become stuck on the wheel. As I accelerated during my take off roll, I heard stones impacting the prop. Fortunately the airport was only a few minutes away and when I landed, I saw that I had several good sized nicks in the prop that will require repair before my next flight.
Aside from avoiding gravel pits all together (which is no fun) or making sure that I don't go through mud puddles any more (which I'll try but there's no guarantee) is there some sort of fender option that I could install over my wheels to prevent this from happening again?