Greetings, My wife and I have been refurbishing a 1961 Aircoupe, Model F1A for the past year. After overhauling the nose gear I was left with a nose gear cable and no real good reason to reinstall it.
>From what I can see it serves no real purpose as the nose gear should not fall off as the scissors and other internal workings would not allow seperation from the engine mount. Another downside to leaving the cable installed is that the cable does not allow the gear to extend to its full length in flight. This would hold the wheel assembly up behind the prop arc and might cause additional drag. A third item that comes to mind is that since the gear is not allowed to extend to its maximum length, you would stand to lose some of the hydraulic shock benefit upon landing. Maybe that is why there are so many broken nose gear springs found upon gear disassembly (mine included). I also have not found any reference in the maintenance manual or the Illustrated Parts Breakdown. So what is the verdict leave it on or take it off? Linzy & Marcella Johnson
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