REFLECTOR: fixed gear nose wheel

[Dennis King]

Adding a fin to the nose wheel fairing would make the fairing act like a bigger rudder and might cause a worse yaw problem after takeoff with a cocked wheel. You would have to be able to straighten the nose with the rudders before the fin would be able to overcome the friction washer adjustment to straighten the wheel. If the friction adjustment was too tight, you might not have enough rudder authority to straighten things out. Unfortunately, all of this would be going on right after takeoff, so things could get dicey. Be careful! 


Dennis King 

----- Original Message -----
From: "David Ullman" <ullman at robustdecisions.com> 
To: reflector at tvbf.org 
Sent: Sunday, March 17, 2013 9:05:14 AM 
Subject: Re: REFLECTOR: fixed gear nose wheel 

I have an SEFG and don't have much of a shimmy problem. Seems to come and 
go, and is never very bad. But, a bigger issue occurred last summer. I had 
the front faring on and I took off. The plane had a bad yaw that I had not 
experienced before. I checked and all the controls were working as they 
should. I figured that somehow the front wheel was cocked and acting as a 
front rudder. I landed and sure enough, when the front wheel touched down, 
I felt a jerk, like the wheel aligning. I taxied back to the hangar and 
found the back half of the front faring was missing. The jerk of the wheel 
aligning had whipped the fairing so hard that it literally tore off. This 
confirmed what happened in flight, I must have skipped to the side just as I 
lifted off and the friction was enough to hold the misalignment in place. I 
started a search of the airport area for the faring half when I guy pulled 
up in truck with a "is this yours?". It was on the runway, luckily he 
landed right after me, saw it depart my plane and was able to land around it 
and go back and pick it up. 

I want to put the front faring back on, but don't want to experience this 
again. I think my friction is about right as I can easily steer when taxiing 
and don't have much shimmy. First question: anybody else ever experience 
this? Second question: I am thinking of putting a rudder on the back half 
of the faring. This should give enough aero force aft of the pivot to make 
it weather vane should I knock it off center again. It may also add a 
little shimmy damping. I would have to beef the connection of the rear half 
to the wheel. It should look cool too. Has anyone tried this? 

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


_______________________________________________ 
To change your email address, visit http://www.tvbf.org/mailman/listinfo/reflector 

Visit the gallery! www.tvbf.org/gallery 
user:pw = tvbf:jamaicangoose 
Check new archives: www.tvbf.org/pipermail 
Check old archives: http://www.tvbf.org/archives/velocity/maillist.html 
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://www.tvbf.org/mailman/private/reflector/attachments/20130317/0825151a/attachment.html>