Anti-Splat "nose job" - any data points?

Finley

Finley, thanks for posting the video and information. You have as much experience landing on grass as anyone I have had a chance to ask this question: Do you feel more confident with the anti-splat device on your plane?
If yes, that's all I need to know. Thanks.

rockwoodrv9 said:

Do you feel more confident with the anti-splat device on your plane?
If yes, that's all I need to know. Thanks.

Click to expand...

A bit of history.
I was nervous and had low confidence in the nose gear when I first flew my 9A off grass (years before the anti-splat brace was available). However after many landings on grass, gravel and dirt the nose gear has performed flawlessly. The only airstrips that I would not land on now are ones where there is a risk of the nose wheel dropping into a significant hole and possibly causing the lower surface of the nose cone fairing to contact the ground.

So to answer your question, I had gained high confidence in the nose gear before installing the brace and I consider it would not be necessary if I was 100% certain of the surface of all the airstrips I would be landing on. However I feel that the brace may give me a greater margin if an airstrip has potholes 'etc' that I was not aware of or if I ever had to do an off airport landing. Given that the brace has not contacted the strut after many grass landings I can see no downside to installing it at this stage.

You may also want to know that I have strengthened and modified the nose cone fairing so there is more clearance between the ground and the fairing than standard and have never had any fairing to ground contact even though I have operated off some rough/soft strips. I also ensure that I never have more than the 325 lb weight on the nose wheel as recommended by Vans for the 9A.

Sorry for the convoluted answer to your simple question.

Fin
9A

Thanks

Finley,
Thanks for the answer. Like you said, you made many landings without the brace with no trouble - so has almost all the other A pilots. That does give me more confidence, but I think I am with you on adding the brace.

If there wasn't an issue with the nose gear, you wouldn't be able to find videos and many posts in this and other forums about the problem. I just don't like the design. I have to believe there is a better design. Maybe it is as good as it gets - anything can fail if you add the stupid factor.

I always thought the Warrior had a pretty good nose wheel but when I watched the Mooney video, this video of a Warrior was on the same page. No injury other than wallet, but still a nose gear failure. It shows very poor pilot skills but the gear lasted 7 or 8 bounces directly before failure. Would the A planes last even the first touchdown?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMmHYWjEmkY

Then, watch this video of how strong the Cherokee gear is. Every landing is going to be different.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qa12veWQEgU&feature=related

The building up of the wheel pant and increasing the ground clearance sound like a great idea. I like the skid plate modification too - but I might make it larger.

In the end, the pilot skill is going to be the largest factor in keeping the wheels on the bottom, in almost all situations. Those times when you hit a bump, pothole, or soft field, the added strength could make the difference. I will have one on my A.

Finley Atherton said:

A bit of history.
I was nervous and had low confidence in the nose gear when I first flew my 9A off grass. However after many landings on grass, gravel and dirt the nose gear has performed flawlessly. The only airstrips that I would not land on now are ones where there is a risk of the nose wheel dropping into a significant hole and possibly causing the lower surface of the nose cone fairing to contact the ground.

So to answer your question, I had high confidence in the nose gear before installing the brace and I consider it would not be necessary if I was 100% certain of the surface of all the airstrips I would be landing on. However I feel that the brace may give me a greater margin if an airstrip has potholes 'etc' that I was not aware of or if I ever had to do an off airport landing. Given that the brace has not contacted the strut after many grass landings I can see no downside to installing it at this stage.

You may also want to know that I have strengthened and modified the nose cone fairing so there is more clearance between the ground and the fairing than standard and have never had any fairing to ground contact even though I have operated off some rough/soft strips. I also ensure that I never have more than the 325 lb weight on the nose wheel as recommended by Vans for the 9A.

Sorry for the convoluted answer to your simple question.

Fin
9A

Click to expand...

For all of you out there who want ?statistical proof? that this device is working, I want to remind you that there is no such thing. Statistical analysis will only allow you to accept the hypothesis (H0: the anti splat products reduces the incidence of nose gear accidents/damage) at a given level of confidence. For example, the accident rate for a given period of time will vary some amount. The standard deviation of that variability can be calculated. Now, how many standard deviations must the accident rate drop before you ?feel confident? the device is making a statistically significant difference. Requiring a higher number of SD?s increases your confidence (measured in percent) that you are making the right conclusion and reduces your ?alpha? risk. That is, the risk of concluding that the device is effective when in fact it is not. However, as you require a higher number of SD?s in order to reduce your alpha risk, there is a corresponding increase in the ?beta? risk. That is, you mistakenly conclude that the device is not helping, when in fact it really is. So, pick your poison.

It seems that some folks are mostly interested in reducing alpha risk (mistakenly concluding that the device is effective when in fact it really isn?t) and others are more interested in reducing beta risk (mistakenly concluding that the device is not effective when in fact it really is). For me, I was more interested in reducing beta risks. If there is even a hint that the device is effective, I was willing to (and did) purchase it. The only downside to having it even though it is not effective is the cost. I ?judged? that the downside of not having it when in fact it is effective times the probability of my needing it to prevent damage times the cost of that damage was higher. Note that I said I ?judged? not calculated.

Two quotes with which I am very fond:
W. Edwards Deming (quality guru) on problems with U. S. business management practices, ?management by numbers alone without any thought given to that which is unknown and/or unknowable.?

Einstein, ?not everything that counts can be counted and not everything that can be counted counts.?

In posts #49 and #52 I stated that the ends of the brace had not contacted the strut after many landings on my grass strip. I have since operated off some very rough strips and have had minor contact presumably when landing on these strips.
The contact was on the top left of the brace only. I think it was light contact as the brace only contacted on one corner and there was only a slight tear (about 1/8" long) in the masking tape I had previously installed and no mark in the powder coat.

One of these strips was very rough with unmown tussocks and undulations which had the nose wheel bouncing up into the air a few times during the rollout with moderate braking. This was definitely the roughest strip that I have landed on and even felt very rough on a subsequent takeoff in a cessna 206 with quite large wheels.

I did a little experiment with the aircraft in the hangar. I tied the tail down so that the nose wheel was well off the ground. I then stood on the nose wheel fork with both feet and while holding on to the front exhaust pipes I pushed/bounced on the fork forcing it down and backwards while a helper looked for contact with the brace. I am not that heavy at 74 kg but I was fairly easily able to get contact with the strut at the same spot on the top left of the brace and it was also apparent that the flexing seemed to occur in the thick part of the strut just below where it slides into the mount. No matter how hard I pushed/bounced the gap at the lower end of the brace never decreased.

IMHO even though there was contact with the brace I don't think anything scary was happening as I was easily able to simulate the contact by pushing/bouncing on the strut.

I believe that normally the strut bends mostly forward however on the extremely rough/undulating surface there was some amount of rebounding of the strut with it briefly flexing aft high up in the thick part of the strut and this caused the slight contact at the top of the brace. I think it is very unlikely that there was any tucking under of the nose wheel as there was no contact at the lower end of the brace and no marks on the nose cone fairing indicating that it may have contacted the ground (I modified my fairing to give extra ground clearance).

I continue to have high confidence in the nose gear and consider it will take a lot of punshiment even without the brace provided the nose cone/fork/nut does not contact the ground.

Fin
9A

Folks,
This thread was more than a year ago. At the risk of having a rehash, what new has been learned sine spring 2012?

i have yet to see a picture from a folded nosegear despite brace installed... has there been any?

we mounted ours this spring after the mods to fit the standard fairing. no operational/noticeable change before/after, which is actually great and the intention of the product.
we only operate on solid runways however, so the risk is greatly reduced anyhow...

jay.pearlman said:

Folks,
This thread was more than a year ago. At the risk of having a rehash, what new has been learned sine spring 2012?

Click to expand...

At the risk of confusing a lack of data, which proves nothing, with actual numerical data, I'm slowly coming to believe the device is working to prevent the flip overs. So far I've only heard of one person flipping an A model (a 9A I believe). Field conditions were so poor that the problem was almost certainly the decision to land several inches of mud, and not with any hardware (i.e., the plane or the Anti-Splat device). I have read that the pilot admitted this, too.

Prior to the Anti-Splat device, flip overs were reported fairly regularly. These reports seem to have faded into the background now. There are lots of possible explanations but evaluating the device with a finite element analysis suggests it should at least help, if not work well, and then applying occam's razor (basically, the simplest explanation is probably correct), I'm growing in my confidence that the thing really works - and I started out somewhat skeptical.

As both a 9A pilot who occasionally lands on grass (and loves it) and as a 9A builder, I've spent a lot of time pondering the top (and perfecting my landings). It has intrigued me that no one at Van's ever flipped an A model and they fly them on grass. Add Vlad to that mix because he hunts out grass strips and has not flipped his 9A and it makes me think technique is really important. Landing flat is not acceptable. You need to land on the mains as slow as possible and then keep the nose gear off as long as absolutely possible, and apply brakes gently, and only if necessary. I find keeping that stick all the way back after the nose gear settles to be challenging. I flew a Cherokee for 13 years and you could relax the yoke after the nose wheel settled - the strut and shock could take it (even on grass). It's a hard habit to break...and one I wish I never developed.

I've flow with Vlad and I can assure you he is skilled at getting the nose wheel off the ground fast when taking off, and keeping it off when landing. He coached me early on when I was learning the habits of a 9A. I've heard plenty of other comments second hand from folks who've taken transition training, and it's always the same thing - only taxi with the nose wheel and keep as much weight off it as possible.

Based on all of this, I am of the opinion that the A nose wheel planes are adequate as designed but they are not tolerant of any abuse - even inadvertent abuse. The Anti-Splat nose job adds a margin of safety that will allow at least a moderate amount of abuse - or a lapse in concentration (stick not full back) that would result in abuse.

To be abundantly clear - this is just my opinion. I may well be mistaking a lack of data for data...but ask yourself, if the nose job worked, what would flip over reports look like AND ask what the flip over reports would look like if it didn't work? The nose job is on my "to buy" list but I have not gotten there yet.

Don said:

At the risk of confusing a lack of data, which proves nothing, with actual numerical data, I'm slowly coming to believe the device is working to prevent the flip overs.

Click to expand...

Making a determination regarding anything, when substantial data exists can be difficult. When the data is fuzzy... well it is a lot more difficult.

The statement has been made that "thousands" of the nose gear devices have been sold. My understanding of that word being plural, is that at least 2000 have been sold.

There are currently about 4600 side by side RV's flying. If for the sake of conversation we make the assumption that half of those are A models (the number is probably bigger than that... a lot more RV-9A's than 9's, etc), then there is probably about 2300 2 seat A models flying. Lets call it 2500 to try and compensate for the unknown actual number.

If 2500 is anywhere close to a correct # (I don't think it is too far off) then 4 out of every 5 two seat side by side, A models flying would currently have an A.S. device attached to the nose gear (based on at least 2000 sold).

Of all the people here in the Pacific N.W. that I know, who own an A model RV, I can't think of a single one that has the device installed. Does that mean they are just more popular elsewhere?

If you look through the accident reports for the past year, there has been accidents resulting in flip overs of A models (at least a couple within the past few months).

Bottom line... I think it is going to take a bit longer to see if there really is any change in the numbers, and if there really is at least 2000 sold, and they are making a difference, the change should be quite obvious (considering the number sold vs the number of A models flying).

I would think there are a lot of gear mods on A models that are still in the build process, as is mine. You may need to modify your analysis to include non-flying models in the total units sold.

I do not have one installed and do not know of any installed at my airport. The theory that a lot of flying A models have them installed may not be correct.

Taildrgr said:

I would think there are a lot of gear mods on A models that are still in the build process, as is mine. You may need to modify your analysis to include non-flying models in the total units sold.

Click to expand...

Valid point... further emphasizes the difficulty in evaluating the data.

I think my point is still valid though. I think it is safe to say that there is far more A models flying, than there is A models under construction, near enough to being finished that the builder would have purchased the A.S. device.

So we could maybe say that 1/2 the flying A models should have the device.
From what I have seen that is not the case.

Interesting Numbers!!!!!

rvbuilder2002 said:

Making a determination regarding anything, when substantial data exists can be difficult. When the data is fuzzy... well it is a lot more difficult.

The statement has been made that "thousands" of the nose gear devices have been sold. My understanding of that word being plural, is that at least 2000 have been sold.

There are currently about 4600 side by side RV's flying. If for the sake of conversation we make the assumption that half of those are A models (the number is probably bigger than that... a lot more RV-9A's than 9's, etc), then there is probably about 2300 2 seat A models flying. Lets call it 2500 to try and compensate for the unknown actual number.

If 2500 is anywhere close to a correct # (I don't think it is too far off) then 4 out of every 5 two seat side by side, A models flying would currently have an A.S. device attached to the nose gear (based on at least 2000 sold).

Of all the people here in the Pacific N.W. that I know, who own an A model RV, I can't think of a single one that has the device installed. Does that mean they are just more popular elsewhere?

If you look through the accident reports for the past year, there has been accidents resulting in flip overs of A models (at least a couple within the past few months).

Bottom line... I think it is going to take a bit longer to see if there really is any change in the numbers, and if there really is at least 2000 sold, and they are making a difference, the change should be quite obvious (considering the number sold vs the number of A models flying).

Click to expand...

...A fellow poster stated that many of our units are on uncompleted aircraft and this is very true. I haven't the numbers to offer, but will say this. When we offered the modified version that will fit inside the stock front faring, the phone started to ring. Many people requested the new unit as their paint was completed and they had held off purchasing because of this. We were inundated with requests to exchange for the newer version by builders that were in the build stage. We also received many requests from owners that had purchased this product months or even a year or more ago and hadn't installed it because of their paint hassle. We exchanged over one hundred units in the first two weeks of offering the modified version. These numbers and the telephone conversations with purchasers suggest that a very large percentage are yet to be airborne, and makes data analyses even more difficult if not impossible. We have had several mishaps reported to us, most with very favorable results. There will be some flip overs with and without our product installed. This is to be expected, but only time will determine the effectiveness of this modification. At times it appears that a couple of people are waiting and anticipating a flip over with this modification so they can say, "I told you so." This will happen and will prove nothing but human nature.
... We feel our product adds an increased margin of safety, and if a mishap occurs, it will potentially change the dynamic substantially, with possibly a more favorable outcome. I would like to stress the point that this product will not make an aircraft crash proof or capable of high angle wheel barrow landings, nor will it become an off road vehicle capable of hopping curbs and obstacles. We definitely do not wish to instill a false sense of confidence that makes one careless or lackadaisical about safety when landing. At all times the pilot should exercise caution, and employ the standard soft field landing techniques that have been accepted practice with all nose wheel aircraft. Thanks, Allan....

PerfTech said:

At times it appears that a couple of people are waiting and anticipating a flip over with this modification so they can say, "I told you so."

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It may be jumping to conclusions Allan, but since you quoted my post, are you thinking I am one of those couple of people.

Actually, I am somewhat realistic when it comes to evaluating benefit of a change (I know very well that no design improvement can every work for every situation), so I believe it will be a quite a while before we know. But knowing how many you actually have delivered would help the process. Have you actually delivered thousands as you have stated in the past?

Clarification

rvbuilder2002 said:

It may be jumping to conclusions Allan, but since you quoted my post, are you thinking I am one of those couple of people.

Actually, I am somewhat realistic when it comes to evaluating benefit of a change (I know very well that no design improvement can every work for every situation), so I believe it will be a quite a while before we know. But knowing how many you actually have delivered would help the process. Have you actually delivered thousands as you have stated in the past?

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....No absolutely not! Quite the contrary, I quoted your post because you as always point out things the way they are and don't buy into the sensationalism. This is not the case with a couple of people who are doing a disservice with that negative attitude. You always present possibilities from what appears a very unbiased point of view that hopefully makes people think. This is all good and I am sorry I didn't clarify that in my previous post.
....When we changed over our bookkeeping system and computers due to an exploded hard drive we lost a tremendous amount of sales information. The number is closer to 1100 I believe going by material used Etc. Thanks, Allan

Feedback

As a 9a driver with a lot of grass landings, some rougher than i had thought prior to touch down, I am sold that this mod was a worthwhile investment. I show no signs on my nose leg of the brace making contact, even though I have not always greased all landings and have absolutely hit some gopher holes, bumps, swails etc.

I have only purchased two products from Allan, the 9a brace, and the control lock. Both are excellent quality and I feel very well engineered and creative solutions to things I personally feel needed improvement. Nothing is fool proof, i have seen cessnas with collapsed gear and they are very heavy duty.

We all do our best to build well, and fly safely. If you like it buy it, if you dont no issue at all. Keep the good stuff coming Allan, I appreciate your small business and applaud your engineering and passion. Good job.

I wish more people finished their planes and went flying then sat at their computer being armchair engineers. I dont get the point of that.

Nose Job-Data Point

OK, I'll raise my hand. I have the 9A that nosed over on its back with the Anti Splat brace installed. I bought this plane as a rebuild project from a salvage company. I don't know and have never spoken to the previous owner. Story goes that on landing the plane got into some soft wet ground and had almost stopped when it bent the nose gear back, then went up on its nose and over on its back. The nose gear does not have the curled back shape that is usually seen in the aftermath photos , instead it had a smooth bend of about 45 deg between the top of the Anti-Splat brace and the engine mount socket. The airframe damage is about what one would expect when nosing over at low speed vs higher speeds. I'll speculate some and say that with this accident the brace looks like it prevented the plane from going over sooner and at a higher speed. Also noted that with the nose gear bent like this the plane still sits nearly level.
I have no affiliation with Perf Tech, I spoke to Allen once and thought he was a straight shooter and my hats off to him for investing the time and expense to develop and sell these products to the folks that want them.
My 9 will have the little wheel in the back because I like flying tailwheels. If I had a A model I would probably install the brace and the other nose wheel mods as well because I believe they improve/enhance the existing setup for not a lot of dollars in the big picture of ownership. I will apply this same thinking to my tailwheel fork and use something other than stock. Not an engineer by any means, but 37 years in various areas of the aviation business.


Don Broussard
A&P, I.A, ATP - Lots of time and ratings
Owner/Operator Cajunwings Consulting LLC
RV 9 Rebuild in Progress

Like Viagra

RickWoodall said:

As a 9a driver with a lot of grass landings, some rougher than i had thought prior to touch down, I am sold that this mod was a worthwhile investment. I show no signs on my nose leg of the brace making contact, even though I have not always greased all landings and have absolutely hit some gopher holes, bumps, swails etc.

Click to expand...

Rick, I truly don't want to sound difficult, but isn't there some sort of contradiction in your statements here.

You say that you have landed on some pretty rough surfaces and that the Anti-Splat device has been a "worthwhile investment". But then you say that there is no sign that the brace has ever made contact with the nose gear. Surely that indicates that the brace has never performed any function on your aircraft. If that is the case, then how do you KNOW that the brace has been a worthwhile investment. I would suggest that your personal experiences prove nothing more than that the standard nose gear is capable of enduring some pretty rough treatment.

I purchased the brace myself recently when it became available for standard nose gear fairings but I am still not completely convinced that it works. I think I was swayed to the purchase by the fact that there has been only one VansAirforce reported nose gear failure with the brace so far (and that was in extreme conditions as reported previously). That might indicate a positive trend but in my mind it's too early to say at this stage. The jury is still out.

The problem is that RV flyers have been quick to praise the device when they have no evidence that it has performed any function. I refer specifically to the following VansAirforce thread from June.

http://www.vansairforce.com/community/showthread.php?t=100738

In this case the RV flyer heaped massive praise on the device after his nosewheel left a furrow in the soft surface upon landing. But when asked whether he had removed the nose gear fairing to confirm that the brace had actually been called into action (leaving witness marks on the nose gear) he stated that he had not.

I think there's probably a lot of placebo effect going on here with the Anti-Splat device. It may be like Viagra. It may, or may not really perform any function....but if the outcome is good then people feel it's working.

If this pic works, I think the anti-splat would have worked too. I would have much rather have had one installed, than how it ended up. However, they were not quite on sale yet.....

Mr Adamson, you have probably discussed your event. I forget many things.

It appears that you were on asphalt/concrete.

It would be useful to know how many tip overs occur on paved versus non-paved surfaces.

Personally, I avoid non-paved surfaces which may reduce the chance of this type event signicantly.

Ron Lee said:

Mr Adamson, you have probably discussed your event. I forget many things.

It appears that you were on asphalt/concrete.

It would be useful to know how many tip overs occur on paved versus non-paved surfaces.

Personally, I avoid non-paved surfaces which may reduce the chance of this type event signicantly.

Click to expand...

Asphalt. It didn't even start to flip. Last of three (short) bounces was tail high, low airspeed. I should have just powered out of the first two foot high bounce. Thought it was benign. The event didn't even scare my wife. It was just a crummy feeling to know what the prop was going to look like, when I shut the engine down. It was still idling. The last bounce was actually the highest, but I figured that a power up then, would possibly result into a cartwheel off the runway. Airspeed was much too low for control.

antisplat anti rollover

when dealing with the real world things can happen that are totally unexpected with any device. It seems to me that Vans has not addressed the nose gear problem completely. I have the new fork and I hit the edge of a runway grass to black top. I destroyed my wheel pants and if I put a straight edge on my gear leg it has a slight bend now. I was hardly moving when it happened. I never touch my nose wheel to the ground when landing. I now have to either get the gear leg straightened or replaced. The curvature is only visible by putting a straight edge on it but its there. Those that are putting the anti rollover device down I think just need attention. I for one am going to try it and guess what I will inspect it from time to time to see if there are any unforeseen problems.

Finally somone with some inteligence

I could have applauded .

zav6a said:

We trust the discipline of engineering with our lives every day. It generally works. In some cases, the value of a mechanism in terms of added safety factor is obvious to the layman, for example adding redundancy to an electrical circuit. In other cases, for example the ASA device, it is not so obvious to the layman but to the engineer who understands strength of materials, finite element analysis, etc., that added factor of safety is no less certain.

My point is that even without statistics, we have data. Engineering data. Humans, particularly the ones smart enough to build airplanes, understand that and they put their money where their understanding of engineering tells them there is a reasonable rate of return. The thousand builder/pilots, many engineers themselves, that bought this product are highly unlikely to be wrong.

And I will add that the statistics that many folks would suppose to be conclusive on this issue won't be. There is a pervasive human characteristic that simply can't be accounted for. If the device works, folks will slowly build up tolerance for poorer and poorer landing techniques until bad things happen, even with the reengineered leg. Unless we have data for all of the variables that go into landing technique ( rate of descent, back pressure, etc), as well as damage rates, the stats will be misleading.

I do not have to wait for statistics to assess this product. They will be interesting, but I trust the engineer before the statistician.

Click to expand...

antisplat nose job

I have 650 hrs on my 8a and occasionally got shimmy in my nosegear despite air tire pressure, axle bolt torque and breakout force at spec. The shimmy was of the up and down as well as forward and rearward variety. (not flag snapping variety) I tried never to land without the stick fully back and to lighten the nose as soon as I applied power as any speed more than absolute minimum caused at least a mild shimmy. The nosegear had been re-enforced with a hickory wood stiffener epoxied and carbon fibre wrapped onto the metal nosegear shaft. All Van's nosegear advisories had been complied with.

Recently I did a turbulent IFR approach into Wawa on the shore of Lake Superior that resulted in a tailwind/crosswind landing. The added ground speed at nose lowering caused an alarming shimmy. I decided that what I had done so far to deal with this shimmy problem was not working and that something more needed to be done or else C-FPAB and I would be in peril.

I sent my nose wheel to James at Antisplat and got it back yesterday. Today I mounted it and flew circuits in a 10 knot crosswind. I held my nosegear down longer than I ever normally would and I lowered it sooner than I ever normally would. NO SHIMY - problem solved - nuff said. Paul

Engineering data

Every once in a while I just have to chime in, even when I know it wont be productive. I've been working on my 7A kit for years now and probably years away from finishing but the nose gear issue is never far from my thoughts. I have a very nice grass runway that many RV friends have operated easily from for years but I may still swap to a tail wheel before I fly. Its a pure matter of the work involved to get that far and how bad I would feel to see it folded up with a prop strike or worse. The Van's stock gear is obviously pretty rugged as there are a lot more successful operations than failures in all the "A" models - on all kinds of strips and with less than perfect pilot techniques. However there have been failures, even on reported smooth surfaces and with good pilot technique. So there is a risk factor.
The simple truth is that the design does not meet the standards called out in Part 23 or its predecessor. Of course experimental aircraft do not have to meet the standards but folks should not lightly discount the experience and reasoning that went into those standards either. That small front tire reduces drag but it just cant deliver the compression that a larger tire would either which of course all translates back into the structure. High tire pressures, installation of anti splat, or many of the other mods people have tried, along with perfect pilot techniques may improve things but there is still a risk. The decision to install or not install will be emotional, rationalized, but still based on emotion not engineering data. Kind of like wearing a parachute...

The Nose Job Two

Completed installing the Nose Job Two on my 7A.
Fit nicely inside my stock fairing as advertised. Hope to never test it's capabilities but bought some piece of mind.

Don Bodnar

I installed the nose job 2 on my -6A. It fit under the existing leg fairing and installed as advertised. Parts seemed good quality. I installed this more as possible insurance since I often fly in and out of a grass runway. Hopefully I won't be one of the stats that supports how well this does or does not work. It will clearly change the dynamic of the gear leg mechanics if the gear leg attempts to fold back.


At a later date, I installed the nose and main wheel bearing mods, and had the wheels/tires balanced and trued. The balancing/truing did eliminate a vibration problem that I was fighting. I did the bearings just for the convenience of not having to grease the bearings every year.

ASA does a great job on the bearing mods. One note is that the bearing inner race outside (axial) dimensions don't exactly match the original bearing and spacer dimensions. I had to make 2 shims .040" thick to get the nut/cotterpin holes to line up.

I just finished installing my nose job on my 7A. Not flying yet, but the installation couldn't be easier.

I also installed the Lip Skid because it looked like it made a lot of sense to have it.
However, that did not work as well for me. The skid stuck out too far forward and I could not get my nose wheel pant to fit.
I emailed Allan with some pictures and he said to send it back.
I did that and he fixed the problem and returned it back to me in a week.
Allan told me if he could not get it to fit, he would return my money. Even after I had already drilled it to my gear.
Needless to say, it fit perfectly.

All at no cost or shipping charge.
Great customer service!

Tip over update?

Looks to have been three years since a post to this thread. Have there been any antisplataero nose job two equipped airplanes known to have flipped over in those three years?

I have to agree that Allen is unbelievable to deal with. He just does it right.

AntiSplat products

Although I fly a taildragger -7, I have a number of Allen's products and have been very happy with quality and service. VS and HS reinforcement two cowl flaps and a couple other items have worked well for me. Go AntiSplat !

I'm guessing no news is good news. This seems like cheap and easy deterrent to an expensive and dangerous problem. It will be on the 9A I build.

A good example is in this thread of the ASA Nose Job doing its job.