Interesting and sounds like a good idea.

The wheel assembly itself is also behind the center of rotation (the strut) because of the castor of the wheel mount.

And I think shimmy is generally driven by wheel loads rather than aerodynamic ones.  That does not mean that ballancing all components can't help.

It's not hard to imagine that adding mass to whatever wiggles may cause it to get worse.

 

Mark Ravinski

360



----- Original Message -----
From: "Pete Sinclair" <pete@leapfrogventures.com>
To: lml
Sent: Friday, December 4, 2009 4:28:30 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern
Subject: [LML] Flutter and nose wheel shimmy

So if we balance ailerons and elevators, why not balance the nose gear fairing by adding weight in the front until it is neutrally balanced around the axle?  Would this not help reduce nose gear "flutter"?  I understand that the real center of vibration of the nose gear is around the strut axis, but balancing the wheel pant would at least bring the center of balance farther toward this axis.

Comments?

Pete