REFLECTOR: Nose wheel

David Ullman ullman at robustdecisions.com
Wed Aug 15 20:15:35 CDT 2012


A question:  I have had little trouble with nose wheel shimmy.  Once in a
while I will excite it, but not often.  I have recently added my wheel pants
and all seemed well until the other day.  I took off and after climbing to
2500 ft and leveling off, I noticed a significant yaw.  I could see and feel
it, and the ball was like three diameters to the right.   I looked around
and checked my rudders and they were fine, so I assumed my nose wheel was
cocked and acting like a rudder.  By this time I was near home, had full
control over the crab I was flying so I continued back.  

On landing I put the nose wheel down gently and it whipped back and forth so
hard it tore off the back section of the faring.  On .later checking, the
screws holding it to the front half were in the same state they had been,
the force just tore out the holes.  I checked the side force on the wheel
and it feels about right (I don't have a scale), near 10-15 pounds at the
axel.  

Thinking back, another flight had a slight yaw that I had to trim out. 

Needless to say the entire front faring is off now and isn't going back on
until I have some plan.

So, the question: what is happening here?  Have other experienced this?

David Ullman
N444DX
President EAA 292
541-754-3609
david at davidullman.com

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