|
|
|
Jim,
Bear me out. If I remember right, you would have been flying an ES
(Gear floxed into the extended position).
When you took off, the low pressure in the strut never allowed the strut to
fully extend (cold). It might be possible that you immediately entered a crab on
liftoff and the centering mechanism never straightened it out. On the
other hand, assuming that the strut never was fully extended, while the x-wind
at ground level was a mere 7 kts, it may have been more on the long straight in
(?) approach and perhaps you were flying in a right crab while the
nose wheel pant was aerodynamically flying the line to the runway.
When you touched down, the fluid/seal held the nose wheel frozen, pointed to the
left. It took some force to break it free.
The first time out in cold weather can affect tubeless tire leaks,
hydraulic seal anomalies, etc. These usually go away after the first, uh,
gremlin strike. They also go away on flights to the far south.
Grayhawk
Seeking explanations for the unexplainable.
In a message dated 12/8/2008 1:08:42 P.M. Central Standard Time,
marv@lancair.net writes:
Posted for "Jim Scales"
<joscales98@hotmail.com>:
Need some help figuring this one
out.
Flew a couple of days ago and had an interesting experience
on landing. I
have attached some pictures to help explain what
happened.
Landed with slight RH crosswind. Touch
down speed was about 75. Everything
looked fine, right tire touched down,
left tire touched down, nose touched
down and plane immediately pulled to
left.
Figured I must have landed with some brake pressure on left
pedal. Released
left pedal, made no difference, plane pulling
hard to left while main tires
begin to skid.
Begin to
apply right rudder and brake. Helped but not
enough. Locked up
right brake, plane began to swerve back to
the right. Main tires started
skidding in other direction and
plane started to rotate to the right.
Released right brake
as the nose came back toward alignment with center of
runway. Plane straightened out, I slowed down, turned off,
taxied back to
hanger with no further problems (other that that shorts
issue we all talk
about).
Conditions at the time of the
flight: +2C on ground, -5C at level I was
flying for about 20
minutes prior to the landing, 7kt wind from 320 while I
was landing on
27.
During preflight I had noticed tires needed some air
but not any different
than some other flights. Cold weather had
come in since last flight and tires
lost some
pressure.
I also noticed the nose strut was down
some. The normal 3-1/2 spacing was
about
2-1/2. Again not that unusual. Have flown with this
spacing on a few
occasions with no problem.
When I
checked everything after the flight I found the main tires to be at 45
pounds, the nose tire at 25 and the spacing on the strut at about
1-3/4. No
flat spots on any of the tires. I was
puzzled by the height reduction on the
strut.
The
strut was rebuilt in October. This is the first really cold day I
had
flown it since then.
I have some thoughts about
what the problem could be/have been. I would
really like to hear what you
folks have to say.
I serviced the tires and inflated the
strut. I have flown it twice since
then with four landings and
no problems.
Thanks in advance for the help. I
must say that ten years of racing stock
cars on dirt tracks made a big
difference in how this turned out. I was
fortunate.
I am very interested in finding out what
happened.
Jim
Scales
Note: The pictures may not load in
sequence (proper sequence is 02, 17, 39,
19, 19, 40, 18, 10) so you should
look at them from the point of view of the
landing sequence and roll
out. You will see the lines as the nose tire
touches down on
the center line then progresses to the left. You will see the
main tires start to skid then the nose tire appear to straighten
out. The
next will be the RH brake locking and the plane coming
back toward the center.
--
For
archives and unsub
http://mail.lancaironline.net:81/lists/lml/List.html
|
|