REFLECTOR: Adventure Trip Billings Montana

Chuck Jensen cjensen at dts9000.com
Thu Jun 7 06:23:41 CDT 2007


Rene,
 
I'm sure you're glad to be back home and even more people would have
been willing to help out if those "glory hogs" hadn't jumped right in
and came to your aid.  
 
In reading your interesting Short Story, your 15 lb nose gear setting,
yet resulting shimmy, raises an interesting question about the
correlation between the fishing line test and shimmy prevention.
Recently my nose gear became bulky---I had to jab the brakes to get a
change in directions and then jab again to correct the correction.  When
I (by kick) tested the breakaway force, it seemed well within the spec
that I expected.  Nonetheless, I disassembled the nose gear nut and
washers, cleaned, regreased and reassembled the unit while tightening to
the same breakaway force.  Taxi tests around the ramp showed the
steering to be smooth respond to subtle brake pressure instead of
needing short, sharp jabs to change directions.
 
The interesting part (at least to me) was that the breakaway force was
the same for both before and after the cleaning, yet performance was a
world apart.  It seems the likely culprit is that we test the nose gear
when it is elevated in the air, yet it carries as much as couple hundred
pounds in service which is undoubtedly going to affect performance, for
the better or worse.   In short, the 15 lb (or thereabout) breakaway
force may correlate well to preventing shimmying when everything is
clean and greased, but as grit builds up, the same 15 lb breaking force
may not protect against shimmy as well.
 
Of course, I quit worrying about shimmy by installing Ken Mischler's
nose gear pin.  The only reason its not fool proof in preventing shimmy
is there's still a fool flying the plane that must remember to engage
it.
 
Chuck Jensen 
 
 -----Original Message-----
From: reflector-bounces at tvbf.org [mailto:reflector-bounces at tvbf.org] On
Behalf Of Rene Dugas
Sent: Wednesday, June 06, 2007 6:32 PM
To: reflector at tvbf.org
Subject: REFLECTOR: Adventure Trip Billings Montana



I have attached a short version of my adventure and the WONDERFUL help I
received as a word document. Thanks especially to Ken M., Ken B., Jeff,
Rich, Dale, Don, Patti, Gene and Don and indirectly to Duane and the
Velocity Crew CSA and the Reflectories.

Rene'

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