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RV tip over (flip upside down)

N941WR said:
snipped
One of the locals who helped dissembled the plane for transport (Of course this didn't happen at the owner's home airport.) had built a -6A and a -9A and told us the nose strut on his -6A folded during a low speed turn while taxing. My vote is for a design flaw.
snipped.
Click to expand...

Vans did have problems with the early 6A nose gear legs. On some early legs it was discovered that there was improper heat treating by the vendor. Van also changed the design of the leg. Was your friends unit a "new" leg or an older one? Odds are it was an older unit. Folding while taxiing sounds like the leg was not properly heat treated or had sustained damage on a previous hard landing. A metalurgy test could deterimine the cause. It was this type of test which Vans used to learn of the treatment issues on early legs.
Charlie Kuss
 
chaskuss said:
Vans did have problems with the early 6A nose gear legs. On some early legs it was discovered that there was improper heat treating by the vendor. Van also changed the design of the leg. Was your friends unit a "new" leg or an older one? Odds are it was an older unit. Folding while taxiing sounds like the leg was not properly heat treated or had sustained damage on a previous hard landing. A metalurgy test could deterimine the cause. It was this type of test which Vans used to learn of the treatment issues on early legs.
Charlie Kuss
Click to expand...
Charlie,

I'm sure it was an older -6A and could have had the heat treat issue, or lack of heat treat. He now flies his second RV, a -9A w/ an O-235 and is very careful with the nose wheel.
 
gmcjetpilot-that 12 nosestrut is not what you think by looking at it. Its one piece of 4130 tube sliding inside another with some big coil springs inside to provide the rebound. Kindof heavy and very prone to corrosion since the wear is metal to metal with nothing to provide lubrication. No oleo here, just something that might work short term till something better is attempted I'm sure. I looked at a Zenair and they use a similiar style of nose strut but use a bungee cord for rebound, at least it's lighter!
 
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Looks different

Boy that looks like he hit something just prior to flipping. If you watch the tail, its goes down just before the flip, as if the nose wheel hit somthing and bounced?
 
Rivethead said:
What I see is that the nose drops as if the front wheel collapses just about 8 to 10 feet before it goes over.
Click to expand...
Watch before that happens, the nose shoots UP (tail goes down).
 
Dang I watched that about six times before I saw it. Very significant bounce! Has anybody heard any more about what actually happened.
 
Click our heels 3 times..

Glad the pilot survived the accident.
As with any accident, living to fly another day is the bottom line goal..

Now, before we are accused of 'A' bashing or, trying to examine a trend that does not exist.. let's follow the instructions given us..

Repeat after me;
"It's all pilot error"
"It's all pilot error"
"It's all pilot error"

Don't forget to tap your heels together each time you say it..
(It worked for Dorothy !!)

Now, the wicked witch 'A' issues have all gone away... :rolleyes:
 
Ralph Kramden said:
There was no way that this was pilot error. There is something wrong with the design.

-Ralph
Click to expand...

There are more than two choices Ralph - it might be design, it might be pilot error, or it might just be really bad luck (ie, gopher holes, etc....). My point being that if you think you can make a PERFECT design that it is impossible to flip, you are smarter than the rest of us. And if you think that there are NO pilot errors, well, we all make mistakes....

Of course, I'm flying a taildragger (simply because I think that the -8 looks better that way!), so I don't have a dog in this fight. But folks, if you don't have anything new or constructive to add, do you have to keep beating this dead horse? I have yet to see someone come up with a new and significantly better design idea....just complaints!

JMHO

Paul
 
Ironflight said:
There are more than two choices Ralph -
. . .
do you have to keep beating this dead horse? I have yet to see someone come up with a new and significantly better design idea....just complaints!

JMHO

Paul
Click to expand...

This is my strongly held opinion as a pilot after watching the video that this probably was not "pilot error" - unless he saw the gopher hole and intentionally drove toward it.

It troubles me that people keep dismissing this very valid safety concern (like, "if you don't like flying and taking risks then don't fly this airplane"). I don't want to spend years building my plane only to have it flip and be severely damaged after say, 50 hours of flying. I may very well be less skilled as a pilot than those who have had this misfortune, so I would suspect I am at even greater risk of this happening to me. I love flying. I hate taking risks. Sorry if that is contradictory.

Do I have a better design? No. Just a strongly held belief that there must be something quite wrong with a design that has so many tip overs especially the one shown in the video. Some form of the Europa single main wheel design seems to keep coming to mind but I do not have the skill to implement it on my own airplane.

It's not a dead horse. We need a better design.

-Ralph

P.S. this sort of speaks for itself:
bullojm1 said:
Caught this in the local paper from yesterday:
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/lo...24jun24,0,6144548.story?coll=bal-local-howard

Although the article does not indicate what type of experimental, after looking at the FAA registry for the owners name, it turned out to be a RV-6A (N526W).

Thankfully the pilot only suffered minor injuries.
Click to expand...
 
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From AirNav.com
Runway 3/21

Dimensions: 2324 x 40 ft. / 708 x 12 m Surface: asphalt, in good condition Runway edge lights: low intensity
RUNWAY 3 RUNWAY 21 Latitude: 39-04.440783N
39-04.792417N Longitude: 076-49.775567W
076-49.581617W Elevation: 126.6 ft.
147.6 ft. Gradient: 0.6
0.6 Traffic pattern: left
left Runway heading: 033 magnetic, 023 true
213 magnetic, 203 true Displaced threshold: 178 ft.
no Markings: basic, in fair condition
basic, in fair condition Visual slope indicator: panels that may or may not be lighted, on left (6.25 degrees glide path)
panels that may or may not be lighted, on left (6.00 degrees glide path) Touchdown point: yes, no lights
yes, no lights Obstructions: 60 ft. trees, 200 ft. from runway, 100 ft. left of centerline
APCH RATIO 4:1 TO DSPLCD THLD.
RWY 03 +15'ROAD 100'R CROSSES EXTDD CNTRLN 160'OUT. BRUSH +10',50' R & L @ DISPL. +60' TREES 100'R, 180'OUT
80 ft. trees, 200 ft. from runway, 100 ft. left of centerline
RY 21 +5 FT BRUSH 100 FT FM THLD; 100 FT L.
Click to expand...


Repeat after me.... asphalt runway in good condition.

Pilot error
click
Pilot error
click
Pilot error
click


Nope didn't work for me. I guess I'm just a bad person.
 
Ralph,

I sympathize with your concerns, I really do. I personally flew Grummans with a very similar shaped (but much heavier construction!) nose wheel for 20+ years, and always treated the nose gear like it was made out of glass. Lots of Grumman flyers have collapsed their nose gear, and that was a certified design - it is what it is.

My comment was not meant to belittle the concerns of those building and flying "A's" - I'd simply like to say that if you really want to solve the problem, continuously complaining about it here is not going to do a thing for you. Perhaps some smart engineers are reading this and working on an aftermarket design that will solve the problem. I actually sincerely hope so! But in that case, the message has probably already gotten out, and the "dead horse" I bring up is simply continual negative talk about a problem that everyone is already aware of.

The other thing that bothers me a little is that folks grab the initial reports - from a newspaper no less - of an accident that happened less than 24 hours ago, and immediately start using it as an example to support their points. Give the poor owner and pilot just a little time to grieve, would you? I have done a considerable amount of accident investigation, and the one thing I know for sure is that the first story - and first explanation - is invariably wrong.

This is an engineering problem which means that compromises in the design are inevitable. It also means that you need to use engineering methods to solve it....and complaining here isn't going to do much good. Solve the problem. Design something. Get a design team together and build a better mousetrap. But don't just expect someone to come to the rescue - this is experimental aviation - you are free to move around the design world and solve it!

No disrespect, and sharing the concern....just tired of the same old posts I guess...

Paul
 
WOW!! Nosewheels flipping over on grass or hard surface, tail wheels ground looping all around them. Nothing is safe!!! :eek: I vote for JATO assisted launcher takeoffs and we all kill the power and belly land. :D :p ;)

Roberta


Click
Click
Click

Hmmmm
 
robertahegy said:
......... and we all kill the power and belly land. :D :p ;)

Roberta
Hmmmm
Click to expand...
Naahhh! That's been done before, most recently by a couple of Bonanza's!
 
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You gots to know your limitations

Paul,

I couldn't disagree more. When I talked to Van's last week, they told me that the factory 6A has 4000 plus hours, much of it off the old factory's grass strip, with no nosewheel issues. He went on to say "We aren't selling bush planes".

This issue has not progressed to an engineering issue, as you suggest. The factory is strongly resisting any design change, taking the stance that properly flown on gopher-free surfaces, the airplane has proven itself adequate. As you know, increase the strength 50 percent and you will still tear it off if you porpoise several times.

I think the fix is to stay on hard surface runways and touchdown tail-low and slow. I see way too many flat landings. Talking about this on the forum can't hurt, especially if it leads to the realization that all airplanes have limitations.
 
Ralph Kramden said:
There was no way that this was pilot error. There is something wrong with the design.
-Ralph
Click to expand...
Pilot error can be considered operating your plane in a location/way that it was not designed to.

I am an engineer for a major airplane company and have laid out numerous landing gear designs. There is nothing in the RV "A" design that makes it suitable for soft field operation. One it has a nose gear, two it has small tires, three it has high pressure in the tires, and four the nose gear is cantilevered out in front of it's attach point. I do not think Van advertised this plane as a soft field airplane and if you wish to fly it onto soft fields you need to follow the proper procedures, be highly skilled, and lucky. The tailwheel airplanes are much better and when Van was asked to design a nose gear plane he did so with some compromises to soft field operations.

A Ferrari is a fast car designed for the paved road. You may get lucky driving it on a dirt track and not cause damage to the car but you need to have driving skill and avoid all the bumps and pot holes. If you want to do some serious 4-wheel driving or increase your chance of not damaging you car on routine dirt roads you buy a truck or jeep (or Hummer if you have the money).

The RV is designed to be fast sport plane. You want to land on grass strip with minimum risk from a poor landing, off day, or bad luck will damage your plane then build a Murphy Moose, Zenith 801, or a Tundra Cub. Know your and your planes limitations. I have a Cessna 140 that I love to fly off the 3 grass strips at my airport but I will not fly my 6A off the grass.

If you wish to redesign (or have Van redesign) the "A" gear then get the facts. Does this happen on pavement or only grass, what are the weights and balance of these planes, what has the tire pressures, axial clamp-up load, speed, fork design, runway California bearing ratio (hardness), what was the pilot experience level, etc of the planes that tipped over.
 
Yukon said:
Paul,

I couldn't disagree more. When I talked to Van's last week, they told me that the factory 6A has 4000 plus hours, much of it off the old factory's grass strip, with no nosewheel issues. He went on to say "We aren't selling bush planes".

This issue has not progressed to an engineering issue, as you suggest. The factory is strongly resisting any design change, taking the stance that properly flown on gopher-free surfaces, the airplane has proven itself adequate. As you know, increase the strength 50 percent and you will still tear it off if you porpoise several times.

I think the fix is to stay on hard surface runways and touchdown tail-low and slow. I see way too many flat landings. Talking about this on the forum can't hurt, especially if it leads to the realization that all airplanes have limitations.
Click to expand...


I'm not sure what you disagree with me on this, except that it doesn't need to be beaten on, and beaten on, and beaten on John. I don't think that the Van's nose gear is optimized for rough field operations, I think that people need to operate it within the design limitations, and if they want to design a new concept they are free to do so. I don't think that Van's is going to redesign it, and they have pretty much said so. If there is new data and information to be exchanged, I am all for it, but to simply make new posts that restate the same old negative information doesn't do much except incite rancor and discord.

Paul
 
I didn't say that...

Yukon said:
Paul,

I disagree that this is a non-issue and shouldn't be discussed.
Click to expand...

John,. I never said that it is a non-issue, and if you will read my posts you will figure that out. I simply stated that I hadn't read much new and as this is now the four-hundredth and something post in the thread, I am not sure what the purpose is if no one brings new data to the table. I don't see that you have added anything technical to the discussion recently.

Paul
 
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And "I" am getting plenty tired of hearing that the A's shouldn't be flown off grass, when in fact, so many have, for so many years! :(

I do agree, that RV's are not suitable tundra airplanes; and this includes taildraggers too, as we seem to want these minimal drag & tight fitting wheel pants. Not to mention the "teenie" little tires...

L.Adamson --- will get a Husky for the "mission" :D
 
Pilot Error

Pilot Error: I think he was going to fast (there I said it and reserve the right to be wrong). Sorry it's just my opinion, I think it was going too fast based on the poor res video.

I expect a slow or medium walk speed taxi at an airshow with planes and people around any way. I know if I taxied a RV-A on grass I would go slow for sure (although I am a taildragger guy). It looked like he was hauling tail, a 100 meter sprinter not a heel-and-toe speed walker. Even a large Boeing has a max recommended taxi speed of 30 mph, although more to do with brake temps.


Slow taxi speeds (especially on soft surfaces) is an operational safety net that needs to be done, in my opinion.


It is not really blame but a contributing factor, in my opinion. I know every planes gear design "contributes" to issues like all gear designs from a DC-10 to a Piper cub. They are always a compromise. Even big jets can flip on their back (albeit usually during landing not taxi).

A "trike" or "milk stool", three wheels or legs is not a stable configuration; whether a taildragger or nosedragger, three wheels is not a stable config, but that is what most planes have, three wheels. Having four main gear's is not practical (but it was done before). They got rid of three wheel ATVs for a reason. You can't even buy one now.

In my opinion if you taxi real slow, EVEN if you snag the nose gear, you have a very good chance of NOT going over. You may not even damage the gear. At worst you do bend the gear, ding the prop, but you will able to get out the cockpit with out tasting dirt.

There was a Subaru powered RV-A that folded the nose gear taxing on grass two years ago. The pics made the rounds on Yahoo. The damage was a broke expensive MT (wood/glass) prop and a destroyed nose gear and fairings. This was early on in the nose gear controversy. The Gent said he was going real slow on soft tall grass. It may have also dipped one wing tip into the dirt, but bottom line, he was going slow and did not go over. That is the bottom line taxi slow and have hand on throttle/mixture; if your nose digs in kill the engine.
 
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Yukon said:
Paul,

Anyway, is it now a new forum rule to bring "new" information to the forum on every post? You are making me paranoid!
Click to expand...

I think that Paul IS right! I've never seen a thread that has gotten so many newcomers "paranoid"!

All a sudden we have builders ready to ditch their "A" models because they're scared that they won't get 100 hours on the thing before flipping it.

A state of "paranoia" now exist's for the shear thought of flying an A off anything but pavement!
Yet Van's pilots did it many times in their early promo videos.

Yep...... many hundreds of nosewheel models flying for well over a decade, but thanks to this thread, it appears that all are about to pole vault over the top, anytime now! :rolleyes:

Yes, I'm now paranoid too. Paranoid to read some of the unsubstantiated & misleading **** that fills some of these threads...

L.Adamson -- RV6A

edit: and now -c-r-a-p- looks as if it was ####, but it works for me! :D
 
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L. Adamson........if my memory serves me, you were building a Lancair or something......when did you start building a 6a?
 
Yukon said:
L. Adamson........if my memory serves me, you were building a Lancair or something......when did you start building a 6a?
Click to expand...

That's another "Adamson", that uses this forum.
He appears to have more money than me! :)

Just painted my "A", and hauled it to the airport this morning.

L.Adamson
 
Feeling of deja vu

Ironflight said:
I don't think that Van's is going to redesign it, and they have pretty much said so.
Paul
Click to expand...

Gee, I'm having a strong feeling of deja vu here. Flashback to 2004. Builders are expressing concern over the number of nosegear failures....the "pilot error" brigade are saying that there's nothing wrong with the nosegear. And Vans are steadfastly repeating that they have no intentions of making any changes.

And then in 2005....suddenly, hey presto...Vans announced that they were making a modification to the nose gear and the new raked fork appeared with additional ground clearance.

And suddently, overnight, all of the "pilot error" brigade went to ground. Not a peep was heard out of any of them for months. They were obviously shocked to discover that Vans had humiliated them by opting to redesign the "perfect" nosegear.

Incidentally I don't think it's at all valid to say to concerned builders: "Come up with an engineering alternative or shut-up and stop complaining". On the contrary, continuous public complaining is what brought about the 2005 upgrade.

It is also not valid to say that no constructive suggestions are ever made. On the contrary I think some observations have been very constructive. Walt Aronow has redesigned his nose gear fairing to give the fairing the extra 1" of clearance now afforded by the new raked fork...and it's an attractive design. Vans should immediately follow his lead. It simply does not make any sense for them to increase the clearance of the fork but not increase the clearance of the fairing.

Incidentally I told them exactly this when I visited the Vans factory in 2006. I pointed out that increasing the clearance of the fairing had significant upside. In addition it would not add cost, not add weight, probably have no effect on speed....and could be easily retrofitted to existing projects.

I did transition training with Mike Seagar in an RV6A. Ninety percent of that training is about learning to keep the nosegear off the ground. It's about coming to terms with the fact that the nosegear is very fragile and flying the plane accordingly. People point to the fact that Pete flies "Old Blue" in and out of the grass strip at his home base at Vernonia.....it's true, but he has more hours in an RV than any man in the world...and he STILL won't land at the western end of the Vernonia strip because it's a less than perfect surface.

I fully understand that the Van's nosegear is a compromise involving cost, speed, weight etc. And everyone needs to come to grip with the fact that such a small tire with such minimal clearance will always be problematic on unmade strips.

But that is not to say that worthwhile improvements cannot be made to the existing nosegear.

At the very least Vans should now offer an increased clearance nose wheel fairing (preferably with solid reinforcement under the nut area) as an option for those who may wish to venture onto grass.


Here's the Aronow increased clearance mod. Now, does that look like TOO MUCH clearance for you.
 
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robertahegy said:
WOW!! Nosewheels flipping over on grass or hard surface, tail wheels ground looping all around them. Nothing is safe!!! :eek: I vote for JATO assisted launcher takeoffs and we all kill the power and belly land. :D :p ;)

Roberta


Click
Click
Click

Hmmmm
Click to expand...

A tail hook and every runway with a bungee to snag...no more ground loops, no more flips. :)
 
Not for everyone?

Ralph Kramden said:
This is my strongly held opinion as a pilot after watching the video that this probably was not "pilot error" - unless he saw the gopher hole and intentionally drove toward it.

It troubles me that people keep dismissing this very valid safety concern (like, "if you don't like flying and taking risks then don't fly this airplane"). I don't want to spend years building my plane only to have it flip and be severely damaged after say, 50 hours of flying. I may very well be less skilled as a pilot than those who have had this misfortune, so I would suspect I am at even greater risk of this happening to me. I love flying. I hate taking risks. Sorry if that is contradictory.

Do I have a better design? No. Just a strongly held belief that there must be something quite wrong with a design that has so many tip overs especially the one shown in the video. Some form of the Europa single main wheel design seems to keep coming to mind but I do not have the skill to implement it on my own airplane.

It's not a dead horse. We need a better design.

-Ralph

P.S. this sort of speaks for itself:
Click to expand...
Ralph,

It seem to be expressing some trepidation about the RV aircraft. If you decide to build/fly an RV, and do not acquire adequate training/preparation, then you might experience severe financial hardship and/or injury and/or death.

The RV aircraft are not for everyone. There is no shame in admitting that we simply are not up to certain tasks(for example: I will not climb an extension ladder to paint a house---that simply will NOT happen). The ability to recognize and acknowledge our limitations defines our maturity.

All aircraft provide you the opportunity to kill yourself and your loved ones. It is your job, as pilot-in-command, to avoid that opportunity.

Safe and happy travels in your aircraft-of-choice,
Mark
 
Ironflight said:
Ralph,

I sympathize with your concerns, I really do. . . the "dead horse" I bring up is simply continual negative talk about a problem that everyone is already aware of.

. . .

This is an engineering problem which means that compromises in the design are inevitable. It also means that you need to use engineering methods to solve it....and complaining here isn't going to do much good. Solve the problem. Design something. Get a design team together and build a better mousetrap. But don't just expect someone to come to the rescue - this is experimental aviation - you are free to move around the design world and solve it!

No disrespect, and sharing the concern....just tired of the same old posts I guess...

Paul
Click to expand...

So, observing ("complaining" as you call it) that there is a problem is not going to lead us anywhere? Respectfully, I disagree.

I think that by raising awareness among peers is likely to help motivate people to do something about the problem - assuming that the discussion leads enough people here to agree that something needs to be done. In my line of engineering, this is sort of like raising an issue higher in management or raising an issue to peers at a staff meeting. It would be a strange thing indeed to be unable to raise an unresolved issue at a staff meeting simply because it has been discussed previously and remains unresolved.

It would seem to me that if this were a meeting at work, what would happen is that we would start making suggestions about what would or wouldn't work to solve the problem. Or we would discuss who might be able to get the problem resolved and who we would have to talk to to get that person to help us. I can't imagine a boss (a good one anyhow) telling us to just stop raising the issue because no one feels like solving the problem...

I am not a mechanical engineer - I am a software engineer. I don't know the tradeoffs of putting a bigger wheel on the nosegear, or if replacing it with something that does not reach out from behind would make a difference. I don't know how to figure out the weight and balance issues versus the alterations of spin recovery characteristics or overall stability - so not knowing how to approach these issues, I am not going to just go and stick a bigger wheel on my airplane. All I really know is that I had my worst landing ever Friday evening (I forced a bounced landing down instead of doing a go-around - bad, bad I know) and I need my airplane to be able to tolerate the kind of pilot I am (once in a long long while) capable of being.

To tell me that I just should not operate on turf is fine - I don't have any plans to fly to or from any turf strips in the first place. But one problem remains - what about a forced landing? What happens if I have to land this critter on a cornfield? If it can't take a gopher hole then what is going to happen when I try a plowed field? I sure would be willing to sacrifice 10 or 20 knots of airspeed if it meant I would be significantly more likely to survive an off-field landing...

BTW, I do not consider this to be paranoia but preparation.

-Ralph

P.S. AlexPeterson seems to be offering some good engineering in the thread "Nosewheel Theory". So perhaps raising the issue does motivate someone to step in and offer advice towards a solution.
 
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Ralph Kramden said:
But one problem remains - what about a forced landing? What happens if I have to land this critter on a cornfield? If it can't take a gopher hole then what is going to happen when I try a plowed field? I sure would be willing to sacrifice 10 or 20 knots of airspeed if it meant I would be significantly more likely to survive an off-field landing...
Click to expand...

Uh........

Unfortunately, the three RV's that are local to our area; that's flipped in fields, or when running off the runway's asphalt....................were taildraggers. :confused:
 
JATO trivia

Lane Wallace a "Flying Magazine" writer told me an almost unbelievable bit of info today. She has lots of great stories. You know what the first plane the Air Force IIRC used to test JATO's on? According to Lane?
 
mark manda said:
Lane Wallace a "Flying Magazine" writer told me an almost unbelievable bit of info today. She has lots of great stories. You know what the first plane the Air Force IIRC used to test JATO's on? According to Lane?
Click to expand...
Ercoupe (xtra text to make post acceptable)
 
Yeah, that Ercoupe that they did the testing on is still somewhere at CCB if I'm not mistaken.

Speaking of Ercoupes, anyone want and Ercoupe project? Have one sitting in my hanger right now... relitively complete, and relitively cheap...
 
osxuser said:
From AirNav.com
[/b]

Repeat after me.... asphalt runway in good condition.

Pilot error
click
Pilot error
click
Pilot error
click


Nope didn't work for me. I guess I'm just a bad person.
Click to expand...

Multiple hundreds of single engine Cessna and Piper models (and others) have had there nose gear removed by the pilot while making a normal :rolleyes: landing on a paved runway. Search the NTSB files for your self and see.

A lot of the nose gear failure flip over accidents in certificated aircraft, are during forced landings resulting from another cause, but a huge number are simply... You guessed it - pilot error. And on a paved runway no less...

This should make any pilot go, Hmmmmmm...


We will now return to our regularly scheduled broadcast, while I go back to rebuilding one of the flipped over RV's that was caused by pilot error (Thankfully not caused by me).
 
redbeardmark said:
Ralph,

If you decide to build/fly an RV, and do not acquire adequate training/preparation, then you might experience severe financial hardship and/or injury and/or death.Mark
Click to expand...

I have asked this several times but no one ever answers. What do those with superior nosedragger skills, or appropriate training, do to avoid flip over accidents, once the full up elevator will no longer keep the nosewheel off the ground? I have only ever steered at that stage, (with the stick full back)but clearly I am missing something. Every time someone attributes these accidents to pilot error, I wonder what, with so little to do, he could have done wrong.

(In my Supercub I can dump the flaps also, but in the RV, electrically driven, they move too slowly for this to be a positive benefit .)

Since my flying is nearly all off grass, my own approach was to sell the -9a and build a -4 where I will feel safer. It was clear to me the -9A was an accident, going to happen sooner or later, on soft grass.
 
RVs nosegear MUCH more dodgy.

rvbuilder2002 said:
Multiple hundreds of single engine Cessna and Piper models (and others) have had there nose gear removed by the pilot while making a normal :rolleyes: landing on a paved runway. Search the NTSB files for your self and see.
Click to expand...

A check of the NTSB data base (last 5 years) reveals that RVAs are 5 times more likely to suffer a gear collapse (and virtually every "gear collapse" is in fact a nose gear collapse) than a Cessna 172. This is based on projected average flight hours of 50 per annum for RVs and 150 per annum for Cessna 172s.

That's very interesting when you consider that Cessna 172s are the favourite American trainer....and virtually no-one ever learns to fly in an RV.

Sure you can take off the nosegear from a Cessna....but it's a LOT easier to do it in an RV and any assertions to the contrary are without foundation.
 
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Well Then,

The manufacturer should certainly install a different nose gear, suited to the particular needs of each owner, after all the manufacturer is aware of the intended uses for the plane.

Just to be clear: The manufacturer is YOU!

If you must fly a nose dragger, and if you must land on grass, and if you want to be able to land horribly wrong on occaision, then YOU as the manufacturer should change the nose gear that YOU install.

Anny assertion to the contrary is "without foundation"
 
Cessna 310 too...

My late boss bought a 310 that folded its nosegear during a night landing on a perfectly flat, well lighted runway.........
click, click,click...

Pierre
 
gasman said:
The insurance increased this year on my 6A.......... let me goess why!!
Click to expand...
Hmmm........mine and another friend that has a 6A have seen decreases in our full coverage insurance this year (we're talking several hundred dollars). Maybe it's time for you to switch agents and/or companies! :)
 
flip flopper

Jconard said:
If you must fly a nose dragger, and if you must land on grass, and if you want to be able to land horribly wrong on occasion, then YOU as the manufacturer should change the nose gear that YOU install.
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You realize many flip flippers where during taxi, not landing, just saying. :rolleyes: I kind of sort of disagree that the "manufacture" should change a major structural member, unless the manufacture is qualified to make that change, due to unintended consequences and all. However previous suggestions, bigger tire/wheel, skid and stiffer gear leg sound promising with normal trade-offs in weight and drag. In the mean time TAXI SLOWLY.
 
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You mean to tell me we shouldn't be doing 25+ while taxi an aircraft. Wow! We need to get the word out. I see it all the time, and to think, there is a sign for the auto's to do 15. Seriously, I stay at around 10 and sometimes slower. After all these airplane are fragile and they are harder to stop, no anti lock brakes you know. I've really paid attention to the nose wheel aircraft landings since the treads have started in the last couple weeks. Pretty amazing how many land on that nose wheel. fly safe, taxi safe.
 
Captain Avgas said:
A check of the NTSB data base (last 5 years) reveals that RVAs are 5 times more likely to suffer a gear collapse (and virtually every "gear collapse" is in fact a nose gear collapse) than a Cessna 172. This is based on projected average flight hours of 50 per annum for RVs and 150 per annum for Cessna 172s.

That's very interesting when you consider that Cessna 172s are the favourite American trainer....and virtually no-one ever learns to fly in an RV.
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Does this database search, actually include damaged firewalls/gear mounts for the Cessna 172; and not just a full collapse of the nose gear?

I have no time to do extensive database searching at the moment... :)

L.Adamson
 
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