For those who don’t fly let me explain that small airplanes have differential brakes. In other words, my left heel controls braking on my left tire and my right heel controls braking on my right tire. Most aircraft brakes are run by the pilots toes, but on a Cub the brakes are run with the heel.
I can spin my Cub around on a dime because all I have to do is stand on one brake, and the tail will swing around that tire. When this little maneuver is performed in sand, the tire that pivots will burrow into the ground, and with small tires you will actually get stuck. When I pivot around like that, I am generally shutting down, and when I get out of the Cub I make it a habit to remove all the sand from in front of the burrowing tire. My plane has plenty of power to pull itself out of the hole, but I’ve found that it prevents me from using excessive RPM to get rolling. Lower RPMs help prevent damage to my prop from flying sand during the power-up. I actually avoid pivoting just for that reason. I use a larger radius turn and/or my momentum to leave me into a good position for a gradual roll out with minimum RPM. I know this sounds like a petty little detail, but with Borer props running $3200 … every little bit counts.