REFLECTOR: Fixed vs RG

[Kent Murley]

I have an XL RG but wish I had the FG. RGs require too much time or 
money to keep maintained in order to gain 12ish knots.

I have had no problem remembering to put the gear down because fear of 
embarrassment is a good motivator for me. At least so far. I'll bet a 
pair of distractions could easily nab me, though (I do the GUMPS check 
again on final). I have no speed brake so I am forced to preplan my 
arrival. In order to fit in the traffic flow I need to slow early to get 
down to 120 knots prior to downwind which makes it easy to just drop the 
gear then.

I always get alarmed on short final, though, because I have my Chelton 
set to give me an audible "Check Gear" when it senses approaching a 
runway at low altitude. No matter how many landings I do my heart skips 
a beat during the alert because I never expect it. Each time I swear I'm 
going to reprogram it, but I never get around to it.

None of my pilot buddies have planes that cruise near Velocity speeds so 
no-one, especially me, gets to see if my plane looks cool with the gear 
up. On the ground the FGs with pants look the coolest, especially with 
the cabin doors open.

Last week I got shimmy on the nose gear for the first time during a 
landing. I had not tightened the fork nut for over 10 hours/15 landings, 
so it was my own fault. Flew today with no problem. I will say that 
during my shimmy event I had slowed too much to get the canard to fly 
again (full back elevator got me nothing) and so I got aggressive on the 
brakes to no avail. Once below 35 knots it quit. If I had a fixed gear 
I'd surely mount those pants with no shortcuts.

I'm actually impressed with the landing gear. I've done some funky 
landings and even without carbon layers my main gear have been fine.


Kent Murley