Hi Bob,

Regarding your nose gear gas strut, I suspect you are looking at the wrong
measure.  I'm just finishing up my annual and did not measure the compression
force.  Reason is that what matters is what airspeed does your nose gear come
down and lock.  I've found that when my plane was first flown and the strut
was 5 years old, the nose gear came down and locked at something around 100
knots.  after a year and a half of flying, it came down at 85 knots.  I also
noticed that I could detach the nose gear linkage much more easily than
before, obviously due to lower strut force.  I replaced the strut just now
(with the Lancair replacement part), the gear linkage is much more difficult
to manually swing into the well, as expected, and I'm confident the manual
extension speed will be well over 100 knots.  Airspeed is the go/no go
criteria elsewhere in the manual for your emergency extension test.  Go with
that.

Ed de Chazal
N361DC