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From: n295vv

Much to my amazement/unamazement, I found that 8" of my center gear door had peeled back to a 90 degree angle and was resting against the cowling after I landed from a three hour trip.

I have always been wary of this structure, since the forward five inches has no reinforcing channel due to space constraints of the gear leg (the unamazement part)

The interesting part is that I inspected the part very closely about 10 hours ago, and found  it to be intact and properly seated so as to not project into the slipstream (the amazing part). The rivets showed no looseness.  I have never liked this structure, and it is checked constantly by me.

The last trip was a 255 kt low altitude trip on a windy day, and the leading edge obviously caught the slipstream, and peeled back very nicely, breaking 10 or so rivets in the process.

Since it peeled away from the gear, there was no danger of a gear malfunction, but it shows that the design sucks, and I am interested in learning if anyone else has seen this (I think it happened once on the earlier planes), and what the corrective action was.

I am considering switching to Titanium in place of Aluminum, and this, of course is very expensive, but may solve the problem.

Interestingly, the other gear door half has several loose rivets now, and they have loosened in the same 10 hour period.

I look forward to any comments.

David Jones, Pecatonica, Illinois

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