RV-6A Nosegear Failure

Couple of days ago a friend of mine had his nose gear fold up on him. Details as I know them.

His own personal, very very smooth grass runway (I have landed on at least 20 grass runways and this is the best one I have landed on)...except maybe triple tree SC.

RV-6A Constant Speed Prop O-360

Installed Antisplat brace

Uneventful landing, stick help back, rolling out at about 20 mph.

Nose gear dug into some soft ground and buckled under

Prop strike, but very little damage to anything.

Luckily, plane did not flip. He said it was very non-violent as he was slowing down and going very slow.

I live on grass and I fly an RV-6 and did not want the nosegear to factor in to where I fly. The runway he owns I would landed an A model no problem. I guess there was unkown soft spot that ruined his day.

I am going to look at his plane this week and look at the runway and maybe post some pictures.

His wife never warmed up to the RV thing and now he is questioning whether he should be flying now. Kind of one of those near death experiences...so to speak. I think he is going to look for someone to buy it as is so you may see it on here for sale. I will give more details as I get them.

Very curious to hear more on this, close to you?

If there is any possibility of getting a picture of the failed nose gear leg please do. Would like to see how a failure occurs with the anti splat device installed.

Erich

Photos would be great. Were there any other mods from Anti-Splat? Nose skid?Wheel bearing mod? There are a number of nose gear failures with the brace to date.It's a big improvement no doubt and may have kept this ship from the back flip.Still I have to wonder what roll the quirky stock taper bearing plays in a situation like this.Photos Please,if you can get them,the site of where the leg dug in would be great also.
RHill

All the info I have is...

Runway has already smoothed over with rain we had. The area was a little sandier than the rest of the runway. Cant really tell anything from there.

The gear snapped off above the brace. Did not seem to have bent very much. Kind of like it was brittle. He did not build the plane and said the nose gear was 1" diameter. Different than orginal...1" vs 7/8" ?? I am not sure the specs.

Sorry, I will likely not have anymore information than I have already posted.

Sounds like a non-standard nose gear leg. Makes me suspect there is more going on here

probably an older legq

The original RV-6a nose gear legs were 1" (U-603 and 603-1).
A SB was issued in 2009 to replace them with the bigger 1 1/8" gear legs (U603-3).
As I recall, the original gear legs had more than one failure upon landing. I watched a friend's RV-6a nose gear leg (original style gear leg) fold over while landing at the Copperstate Flyin many years ago.
It would be interesting to know if he still had the older nose gear leg on his plane that had the SB against it.