REFLECTOR: Gear Leg Woes

[Scott Derrick]

MIke,

I'm sure every situation is somewhat different.  I had the same problem on
my std rg.  The leg was first damaged by the original owner in a bad
landing that ended up leaving the runway. It was repaired at the factory.

I had a very bad landing, long story, and had made repairs.

Per a talk with the factory, using a grinder I removed all the torsional
wraps effected down to the core. Blending the removal to allow a 1/2 inch
for each layer. Replaced the wraps. I flew with the repaired leg for about
30 hours and it came undone again.  Very scary landing that was actually a
greaser that turned into a major vibration as the gear was waggin back and
forth because it had become so loose.

I ended up buying new cores and making new legs... I think the damage from
two seperate incidents was just to much and the cores were effected.

Scott



> All:
>
> After ~85 hours I noticed evidence of delamination of
> layups on my left main gear leg (Std Elite RG).
> Perhaps those 'crowd-pleasing' (read that 'damned
> hard') landings I made early-on are back to haunt me.
> I took the gear off and am scraping paint to
> understand the full extent of the problem.
>
> The factory is kinda busy right now and I can't get in
> touch w/ them so maybe someone out there has had the
> same problem and might know what strategy has worked
> in the past.
>
> Can the gear leg typically be fixed?  (I obviously
> hope so!)
>
> Should I remove (I assume 'grind away'!) any parts of
> bad layups?  Any ideas on the best way to do that?
> Should I start grinding away at the delaminated
> portion and stop when I feel I'm into a solidly
> adhered region?
>
> I built each leg to plans with a total of 12 layers of
> UNI/leg; I've heard of others going to 16 layers; is
> that the consensus or factory guidance?
>
> Thanks for any experiences out there.
>
> Mike Deeter
> N2011P Std Elite RG
>
>
> =====
> *******************************************
> Mike Deeter
> N2011 Test Pilot
> iguanamagic at yahoo.com
> http://iguanamagic.siegesmund.org
> *******************************************
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