Harry, on this one may I beg to disagree with you. I discussed this with Fred Weick back in '91. I've probably got the interview tape somewhere but I haven't seen it for a few years so I'll go from my memory.
The nose gear was designed to have a very long travel to get maximum shock absorption AND to get the nose wheel out of the slipstream. The nose wheel strut is in a VERY high speed airflow area. Fred and his team determined that the nose gear fairing gave almost exactly one (1) mile per hour increase in speed. For it to work, the nose wheel must be allowed to descend to the designed position. The nose wheel, with the original fork, goes a long way down. It WILL contact the ground before the weight has fully come onto the main gear. However, the nose wheel will swivel to align with the direction of travel and I've never heard of one "scrubbing off" when landing crabbed in a cross wind. Snubber or not, in a crabbed landing you MUST release your hold on the nose wheel steering control at touchdown. With an original fork nose gear, I'd let the gear go down the full travel, get a strut fairing and suffer the increase in speed. (Any one have a fairing to sell?) With the double fork nose gear, the lower part of the gear is longer. To maintain the original geometry between the nose and main wheels, you would have to snub the gear by a little bit. If you snub the gear to less than full travel, you NEED to take off the fairing. If the fairing can never snuggle up to the strut, it's just wasted drag. In summary, Fred didn't think snubber cables were a good idea. As to making the nose wheel align straight, Harry is right on though I've never heard of a measurement of how much speed you might lose from misalignment. Harry said: > Now, if the original nose sissors fender is still installed, then the cable > holds the wheel where it should be, but the "fender" creates a lot of drag. > It appears to me the proper thing to do is to remove the fender from the > sissors - eliminating the drag. Sorry, Harry, I don't understand this. Mechanic stuff: I've heard some mechanical types tell me that, if you snub the gear the internal geometry of the shock absorber wouldn't allow the fluids to move around appropriately and you lose most of the shock absorption action. I've had other mechanics tell me that the attachments (screws, bolts or whatever) are flimsy and if you don't have a snubber your nose gear might fall off. Without a snubber, it might not be a bad idea to add a test to the preflight: Push down on the tail bolts to raise the nose off the ground. Occasionally have a friend pull down on the nose gear while you raise it off the ground. If it doesn't fall off, it may be safely attached. I'm not a mechanic and I don't know the internals of this part of the discussion. Could some mechanical experts please comment? Harry Francis wrote: > > If you have a double nose fork, then the cable is necessary to keep the nose > wheel high enough so you don't wipe it out by scrubbing on the ground , when > landing in a crosswind. > > The double nose fork is about 2" longer than the original , so the cable > holds the nose wheel in the proper position, so you have sufficient > clearance, when landing... > > Now, if the original nose sissors fender is still installed, then the cable > holds the wheel where it should be, but the "fender" creates a lot of drag. > It appears to me the proper thing to do is to remove the fender from the > sissors - eliminating the drag. Later coupes used a forged sissors assy, > without the fairing fender. > > If the coupe stearing linkage is out of rig, then the nose wheel and fender > act as a rudder, causing the coupe to fly sideways......creating a lot of > drag and poor performance. Removal of the fender fairing and rigging the nose > wheel stearing so that it is straight when flying straight and level adds > better than 5 mph to the coupes performance.... > > Some advocate the removval of the cable.....but this lets the nose wheel down > too low, and if you land even with the controls full back, you are likely to > "scrubb" off the nose wheel and assy, when landing in a cross wind. > > The issue here is not the extension of the strut, but the length of the > extended strut including the wheel...... > > Regards, > > Harry Francis > N93530 > Blacksburg, VA. -- Ed Burkhead Peoria, Ill. N3802H
<<attachment: winmail.dat>>
