"I've done it alone many times, several times just trying to figure a way to make the "retractable" step actually work, before I finally gave up and disconnected the cable and just locked it down."


John,

The retractable step has been quite an "opportunity" for us as well.  They certainly didn't put their "best man" on the engineering and design for the step.

There are many reasons why the step doesn't work, but the main reason ours didn't extend with the gear was because the spring just didn't seem to be quite strong enough to overcome the resistance of the aerodynamics under the wing.  I felt like the air flow under the wing was a contributor to the step staying in the retracted position because every time we put the airplane on jacks and cycled the gear - everything worked perfectly!  The step would fall down and only take a "nudge" to get it into the locked position.  My thoughts were that the wind load would push it to the down & locked position, so I concentrated on getting the step to make that initial movement to the down position.

I found a company in Norfolk, VA that specializes in custom springs and I had them make a spring for me that was about 30% stronger.  Right away, we noticed an improvement because the step would extend, but only at about 100 kts.  Anything above that speed resulted in the step being on the wrong side of the gear.  Eventually, after 4 tries of different spring sizes, we now have a step that extend @ 140 kts - just about every time.  The only down side to all of this is that the custom one-of-a-kind springs cost $40. each. Of course, in the whole scheme of things - that is a small cost for the convenience of having a step.  Like the A/C that Jeff was talking about - - it sure is nice and Janie (better half) likes it, so there "ain't" no problem with the cost!!  <grin>  You know the old story about Mamma being happy!

Tailwinds,

Ed Smith
N9JE
Chesapeake, VA