Landing Gear Alignment

[Mark Julicher]

Tribe,

N96C (aka T-basco) now belongs to Rick Farley and lives at T-89 in South Texas. We are currently cleaning up a few squawks and the biggest issue at the moment is that the landing gear are towed out. When we push the plane out of the hangar the bungees stretch about three inches (and these are new bungees thank you). When the plane is pushed backwards the bungees return to the fully retracted position.

So unless we can learn to land backwards, the plane is some what hard to handle just now.

What is the method for correcting this problem? It occurs to me that we could put a long cheater bar on the axle stub and BEND the gear legs, but that may not be too smart?!

So any and all with some experience here would be appreciated.

Best Regards,

Mark Julicher
NC95312
San Antonio, Texas

[Rich. Anderson]

Re: Landing Gear Alignment

For years my BC12D had three bungee rings instead of two on each gearleg. Give it a try. Rich. Anderson

[crispy critter]

Re: Landing Gear Alignment

Mark,
First make sure you have the correct bungees(I had that problem once).You need 9010HD.Also,make sure you have 2 per side(I have seen that before also).If you have enough of the correct bungees then it still shouldn't spread out like your saying even if the axles are bent,but bent axles will cause her to fight ya on the ground but they really shouldn't spread the gear out.

[Robert Lees]

Re: Landing Gear Alignment

Mark:

Some years ago we had the same problem, toe-out on one of the legs.

A big cheater bar on the axle cured the problem, But we took the opportunity to re-cover that gear leg, so we heated the two downlegs close to the axle cluster with a LOT of heat and tweaked the axle. Done off the fuselage; we had a very big vise to hold it.

Been fine ever since, but since the "tweaking" we have always used one 1110 and one 9010 bungee per side (BC12D), so which was the cure, I'm not sure.

I would be careful about doing it cold (4130 is better formed cold, but there is an AWFUL lot of metal to move cold).

A little bit of toe-in is better for ground handling than a little bit of toe-out, if that is helpful.

Rob

[Robert Lees]

Re: Landing Gear Alignment

Kevin, why does he need 1280? (late model?)

1280 = 12/16 cord diameter, 80" ring diameter?

Rob

[crispy critter]

Re: Landing Gear Alignment

Rob,
You are correct.I had a momentary brain fart as I was typing.I also had to order a set of bungees for a J-3 Cub earlier today and they use the 1280HD.The correct number should be 9010HD.I will edit my other post too.

[selje]

Re: Landing Gear Alignment

I had a Pacer in the past and these planes are short coupled and tend to be harder to manage on the ground than Taylorcrafts. It was the concenus of the Pacer people and my experience that slight toe-out is better.

[Jim Hartley]

Re: Landing Gear Alignment

Works for me too!

For years my BC12D had three bungee rings instead of two on each gearleg. Give it a try. Rich. Anderson

[matsuthunder200]

Re: Landing Gear Alignment

I also use three instead of two . Seems to work better in the ruff stuff and on skes.....

[pipsqueak]

Re: Landing Gear Alignment

When I bought my F19 it had been ground looped. The gear were pretty toed in, to the point that it was verry verry hard to land on pavement. So when I scraped some fabric off the leading edge of the wing I thought it was time to fix it! The A&P heated the gear and bent them back, then covered them with insulation to slow cool.

Barney Anselment