REFLECTOR: Shimmy on landing

[Richard Riley]

At 07:34 AM 4/9/2006, you wrote:
>Richard Riley wrote:
>>A friend of mine snapped his front LG strut on an XL-RG last 
>>year.  It was a very gentle landing, but he'd had several shimmy 
>>events previously and strongly suspects it was shimmy that did 
>>it.  I looked at the break under a high power microscope, there was 
>>no sign of corrosion or crescents in the break, it was a sudden, 
>>complete failure.
>Most likely it was already cracked from the previous events and he 
>miss-interpreted the visual cues.  He would have been wiser to 
>rectify it after the first event instead of repeatedly punishing the 
>nose gear until complete failure.  But then hind site is always 20x20.
>
>Shimmy on any plane should be correct4ed immediately.  On our fully 
>castering nose wheels its even more  important.

He was trying to correct it from the first incident, but (in 
hindsight) not aggressively enough.