Patent ID: 7154705

Claim:
A magnetic head for a rotary head drum comprising: a head chip having a tape sliding surface at an end thereof and having a magnetic gap formed on said tape sliding surface, said tape sliding surface having a pair of grooves formed along the opposite sides of said magnetic gap in such a manner that said tape sliding surface is divided into three tape sliding surfaces including a belt-like central tape sliding surface on which said magnetic gap is formed and a belt-like upper side tape sliding surface and a belt-like lower side tape sliding surface formed on the opposite upper and lower sides of said central tape sliding surface with said pair of grooves left therebetween, said pair of grooves being inclined with respect to a direction of rotation of said head chip, wherein said grooves are formed so as to satisfy θ≧ w /( L /2) where w is the sliding width of said magnetic gap with respect to a magnetic tape, L is the length of said tape sliding surface over which said tape sliding surface contacts with the magnetic tape and θ is the inclination angle of said grooves.