REFLECTOR:The continuing Gear Up Landing Saga

[Scott]

After gluing on an aluminum plate on the bottom of the nose of my airplane, 
where I had worn an amazingly flat area where the gear doors used to be.

Removed the main gear doors,  and test flew the plane. What a performance 
reduction!  I'd guess a 20-25 knot speed reduction and a loss of about 400 
ft per minute climb rate.  It must be those big ol holes in the bottom of 
the wings that the mains aren't filling up.

Flew to North Las Vegas and stopped to see an ailing aunt and get in some 
video poker time.  It was cold for Vegas, below freezing at night, but it 
had warmed up into the 40's by departure time the next day.  No problems 
landing or taking off at VGT.

During the preflight at Vegas I found the reason why the gear had hung up 
in the well at Carson City.  The axle was unscrewed and about 3 threads 
were showing on the left fork!  I can't believe I missed that on previous 
preflights and when I was patching the hole in the nose so I could fly home 
in Carson City!  It was the left guide bar that had a gouge in it also.  I 
think I remember somebody else mentioning the same thing happening to 
them!  I screwed it back in at Vegas.

Got to Grants after a 2.6 hour flight.

Wind was straight down the runway at 15 knots and gusty.  Nice landing 
until The nose wheel touched down.  It was a gentle landing, one  I would 
be happy to for anybody to see, but there was an odd vibration.  I lifted 
the nose wheel up, still had just enough speed to do that, and then it 
settled on down as the elevator lost lift.   Big vibration now! Kind of a 
wobbly feel and then the nose dropped about 6 inches and a very loud 
scraping sound!  I radioed the terminal/FBO and said I had a problem,  Wes 
was watching me land and he said I just lost my nose wheel on the 
radio.   I saw him running out the door towards his truck as we skidded on 
past the FBO.

Down the runway we went, making a racket and vibrating from the makeshift 
nose skid(fork casting).  The plane started to veer a bit to the right so I 
touched the left brake, WHAM!!  down on the nose we fell,  I had just seen 
this view in Carson City last week, I couldn't believe I was once again 
landing sans nose gear.   We finally ground to a halt. As I was unfastening 
my seat belt my wife said I'm right behind you!

Out we jumped into a biting cold wind, it was 28 degrees, 15 knots gusting 
to 25.  The nose gear strut had folded back under the plane ripping through 
the fuselage towards the rear  and what was left of the fork was embedded 
in the bottom.

At that moment somebody could have bought my airplane very cheap indeed.

On the way to hauling it into the hanger I saw the nose wheel and went and 
picked it up. The side with the threads for the axle had a piece of the 
fork still on it.

So what happened and was it related to the gear up in Carson last week.  I 
think so.

I can only surmise the axle bolt was loose for awhile.  The only thing that 
holds the non-threaded side of the fork to the axle is a set screw which 
must have been loose.  If its loose any side load on the axle from taxing 
or cross wind landing would thus be born by the threaded side of the 
fork.  I think it was overstressed, though I saw no cracks in it when I 
tightened up the axle bolt in Vegas.  Maybe the cold effected it 
somewhat(it was -4c on the way back)?   So I think the loose bolt which 
caused the gear to hang up also caused the fork to be weakened over 
time.  My plane was involved in a runway overrun accident prior to my 
ownership and maybe the fork was compromised then also?

Anyway, I had thought I could repair the gear up damage in 30 to 40 hours 
work, now?,  I don't know how much damage was done inside the keel to the 
gear mechanism yet.  It being winter without a heated hanger will certainly 
put a damper on repairs also.

Scott

Getting my wife into this airplane again after two accidents might not be 
possible.  We'll see.