lml@lancaironline.net Mailing List Archive

I will do a complete inspection of the landing gear system including the pressure settings. Andy Chioveta is going to assist me with figuring out what went wrong here. But looking at the clean break and the fact that there are no bends on the tabs, let me to believe that it is a weld failure. I have a good friend of mine who is a metallurgist. He is going to look at the weld as well.

Tony Moradian
Legacy L2K330
N444HL

From: Andy Werback <andyw54_punt@earthlink.net>
To: Tony Moradian <tmoradia@yahoo.com>
Sent: Sunday, September 18, 2011 8:03 AM
Subject: Re: Left Main strut ear weld (Hydraulic Actuator) failure

Hi Tony,

I asked Lancair about this (actually talking to Justin), and his main concern was that you do not use excessive hydraulic pressure on the UP limit pressure switch - the 1150 lb is critical. I agree that this is a tough place for a weld and that the material for the tabs is not exactly heavy duty - but I would have thought that the tabs would have torn rather than losing the weld. But main thing is recheck you hydraulic pressure - assuming the gear retracts freely/easily with the check valve open and the gas strut off - you want just enough pressure to get everything unlocked and coming up. I also wonder if perhaps you could have a stuck/flakey UP limit switch that didn't turn off properly. I put pressure gauges on my up and down lines specifically to see what the limit switches were doing.

Andy

----- Original Message -----

From: Tony Moradian

To: lml@lancaironline.net

Sent: Saturday, September 17, 2011 1:32 PM

Subject: Left Main strut ear weld (Hydraulic Actuator) failure

On my last flight after i put the gear up, the left main indicator light was still on. The tower confirmed that the left main was still down. I orbited overhead and put the gear handle down. Three greens. Confirmed by the tower that all three were down. Set up for a landing with the thought in mind that the gear may collapse upon touch down, not knowing nor being able to confirm the reason for this malfuntion. I had had several other failures on this and preceding this flight that were mostly electrical in nature that i have been battling with since 30 hours on the plane. (Main Bus failure, ahrs, overvoltage etc.) Ended up making an uneventful landing. After further inspections what you see in the pictures is what i found. To my knowledge, i don't know of any other Legacies that have had this failure. Please let me know if you know otherwise. This looks like a bad weld to me!!! All of the forces on this weld are parallel to the way it sheared off the strut. Unbelievable!!!! Check the actuator connection to main strut ear on your Legacies.

Tony Moradian
Legacy L2K330
N444HL