Message-ID: <000801c35ab6$a967b680$1702a8c0@WorkGroup>
From: "Ed Anderson" <eanderson@carolina.rr.com>
To: "Charlie & Tupper England" <cengland@netdoor.com>
Cc: "flyrotary" <flyrotary@lancaironline.net>
References: <3F2E7F40.40905@netdoor.com>
Subject: Rudder Damage - the REAL culprit
Date: Mon, 4 Aug 2003 14:31:46 -0400
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain;
	charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Hi Charlie,

    Sorry the big bash at Oskosh did not turn out better for you.

 First, let me apologize for not getting back to you on the rudder.  I
initially thought the rudder had been hit by somebody/thing and suspected
possibly a golf cart due to the height of the damage and what I thought was
a very small amount of what appeared to be white paint (turns out it
wasn't).  Well, it turns out it was not a golf cart, in fact it was self
inflicted.

If you will recall I had to make a go-a-round due to an ultralight that
turned in front - no wasn't his fault either {:>) - well coming back for the
second pass I was asked to expedite due to traffic stacked up behind me.
Make a nice successful landing but was again asked by the ground boss to
expedite my turnoff from the runway due to same traffic behind me.  Well, I
started my turn off the runway and belatedly noticed that the ground rose in
front of me, but it didn't seem that steep (one eye does not help in
situations like this).  Apparently there was a small ditch or depression
just before the land rose, in any case about the time it occurred to me that
this might not be the best turn off point, the nose went down into the
ditch/depression and then rose to climb the incline about the same time the
main gear rolled into the depression.  At that time I felt a little jolt
that immediately reminded me of an oleo strut bottoming out - which I recall
thinking that was strange - since the RV does have an oleo strut. I mean to
check it out, but forgotten about it in the following festivties.  Should
have checked it the next morning, but in a hurry to get out and headed back,
just wagged the controls from the cockpit and they all worked and had by
that time forgotten the little bump I had encountered.  When I landed back
home I discovered the damage and knew it had happened in the air on the way
back {:>), so based on my initial assessment of the damage - though a likely
culprit was a golf cart..

To shorten the story, when I went back out to my airport the next day to
take a second look at the rudder, I noticed that my tail tie down was bent
back hitting the fiberglass bottom covering of the rudder and that their was
mud surrounding the damage there.  When I saw that I recalled the "bump" I
had felt on turn-off from the landing.  Apparently with the main gear in the
depression and the nose gear climbing the incline it lowered the tail enough
to hit the ground with force enough to cause a compression buckling of the
trailing edge. There were two bends in the trailing edge, a small upper one
approx 14" above the tail light and one large enough to caused the metal to
rupture approx 7" above the tail light - So it was apparently that it was a
compression of the trailing edge that resulted in the damage rather than a
side was blow (such as a golf cart might have inflicted).   Fortunately, the
small area where the metal ruptured (approx the size of your small finger
nail)  appeared to absorb the majority of the  stress as no
fittings/rivets/bolts had any distortion or cracks any where else on the
rudder.  So the rudder is repaired except for the cosmetics like painting
it.  I had to take the bottom fiberglass part off to repair the damage to it
and now have to paint it and stick it back on.

So no ones fault but my own.  Next time I'll be a bit more careful where I
pick to turn off {:>).  I am sending a copy of my reply to the flyrotary
list - so everyone who may have read my first post falsely accusing the golf
cart will know it was NOT a golf cart {:>).

Regarding the article.  Unless you expect to be paid for the article, then I
find that shooting them out to several potential publishers is probably the
smart thing to do.  If two of them publish it so much the better {:>).
However, I did that with the Rotary write up that appeared in August
KITPLANE and they wanted a contract to publish it and pay me money.  So I
had to completely rewrite  the happenings at Sun & Fun for the SAA magazine
which will appear in their fall issue (so I am told).

So again, enjoy the flyin and your and Tuppers hopitality and plan on making
it again

Best Regards

Ed Anderson


----- Original Message -----
From: "Charlie & Tupper England" <cengland@netdoor.com>
To: <eanderson@carolina.rr.com>
Sent: Monday, August 04, 2003 11:44 AM
Subject: to attend or not to attend, that is the question


> Hi Ed,
>
> Congrats on the wise decision to stay home instead of wasting time &
> money at OSH. I enjoyed wandering around with Monty, but derived little
> pleasure from the event itself.
>
> I saw your posts before OSH about damage to your rudder while here at
> our flyin. I want to apologize for the problem & ask if there is
> anything I can do to remedy the situation.  If it was a golf cart I can
> make a pretty good guess about who owns it. Can you give me the height
> above the ground of the 2 damaged spots?
>
> Back to the flyin issue. I'm contemplating writing an article  for
> publication about an alternative event. Have you submitted your articles
> to several publications at once, or to just one magazine at a time?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Charlie
> (closed the horizontal stabilizer last night)
>
>