Posted for "John Schroeder" <jschroeder@perigee.net>:

Earl -

The switch to this oil on the original Lancair ES nose struts was never made.
It is the oil used in the new, redesigned ES struts. You can buy one of the
new ones from Lancair if you have the old one (ESSCO) and want to pay the big
bucks to reduce the probablilty of a severe shimmy at one or more times in the
future.

We have been flying ours for 149 hours, including the just-completed 46.2
hour trip across country to Olympia, WA , the one week trip to Ketchikan, AK
and back. We fill our tire to the 32 pound spec and do not cover the hole in
the nose strut fairing used to service the strut with nitrogen. We have not
stuffed the insulation into the upper part of the strut fairing yet.

I must admit that I was worried about a shimmy on the trip, but nothing
remotely resembling a shimmy occurred. The runways ran the gamut from great to
mediocre, paved runways. We do not land on grass or gravel strips. We did a
100 hour inspection before I left and the drag/greased plate test was OK for
the strut.

Hope this helps

Cheers,

John

> The new Lancair strut is designed very much like the Columbia strut and
> uses 5606 fluid which isn't susceptible to viscosity breakdown at higher
> temperatures. It also has significantly more damping. It has bent a
> couple tow bars.