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No Marc,
The plans call for aluminum tubing all the way to the caliper fitting. The design does call for a "Loop" around the landing gear rod to provide for the aluminum line to flex as the caliper moves in and out - mine had this loop. However, giving the poor fatigue characteristics of Aluminum, I think a flexible line is the only way to go. Stainless steel braided line has my vote. However to be fair, Van has hundreds if not thousands of RVs flying with this set up. Bill, mentioned an RV-8 transiting Thailand having a similar brake fire recently and I have heard of others - but not many. Its "too many" when it happens to you {:>)
Its a pretty helpless feeling to exit the side of the runway and only be along for the ride {:>). My first schedule refueling stop was at Gunntersville, Al which has its runway running out into a lake - sure glad I never got that far as you can imagine.
Ed
----- Original Message ----- From: <cardmarc@charter.net>
To: "Rotary motors in aircraft" <flyrotary@lancaironline.net>
Sent: Friday, June 24, 2005 3:33 PM
Subject: [FlyRotary] Re: Brake Line Incident Photos
Ed,
Almost all certified installations have a flexible line section at the wheel to connect from the leg al tubing to the wheel brake puck assy. Did you have that?
Marc Wiese
From: "Ed Anderson" <eanderson@carolina.rr.com>
Date: 2005/06/24 Fri AM 10:21:43 EDT
To: "Rotary motors in aircraft" <flyrotary@lancaironline.net>
Subject: [FlyRotary] Re: Brake Line Incident Photos
Yes, John - luck and a quick acting nephew {:>). The only answer I can come up with is that the aluminum line suffered a fatigue fracture which weakened the tube and the hydraulic pressure finally blew out the chunk. The line has a loop to provide flexing as the caliper moves in and out - but, flexing aluminum is not know for a long life. In all fairness, there are many RVs flying with this configuration - so the break might be attributed to my installation (stressing the line when I put the loop in it), material weakness, some damage I did not notice, etc. Had over 300 landings before the failure.
Ed
----- Original Message ----- From: John Slade
To: Rotary motors in aircraft
Sent: Friday, June 24, 2005 9:09 AM
Subject: [FlyRotary] Re: Brake Line Incident Photos
Wow, Ed!
You're luck the airplane wasn't consumed.
My question - how did that big chunk get blown out of the brake line?
Regards,
John
-----Original Message-----
From: Rotary motors in aircraft [mailto:flyrotary@lancaironline.net]On Behalf Of Ed Anderson
Sent: Friday, June 24, 2005 8:58 AM
To: Rotary motors in aircraft
Subject: [FlyRotary] Brake Line Incident Photos
For those interested (and may not have seen them) , here are a few photos of my brake line fire incident.
Big chunk got blown out of brake line as can be seen from Brakelines.jpg photo. Effect of resin burning seen on wheel pant photos. Once the line broke, the next time I depressed the brake pedal, a fireball from the wheel to over the wing resulted from spraying the hydraulic fluid over the hot brake assembly. The flash point of the fluid is only 240F! I am going to investigate some stuff with a bit higher flash point {:>)
Ed
Ed Anderson
Rv-6A N494BW Rotary Powered
Matthews, NC
eanderson@carolina.rr.com
Homepage: http://www.flyrotary.com/
Archive: http://lancaironline.net/lists/flyrotary/List.html
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