RVbySDI
Well Known Member
I thought I might post this pic of what happened to me this past weekend in light of the thread Allen posted concerning his misfortune with stalling his aircraft upon landing and the damage that he incurred. This is a testimony of the benefit of the Anti-Splat nose gear brace.
I have a 9A that lives on a grass field. As most everyone knows we here in Oklahoma have had quite a few severe storms over the past few weeks. Tornadoes have caused a great deal of damage to this area. In addition to tornadoes these storms have brought a great deal of rain in a short amount of a few days. Our private grass strip has weathered the storms well. The runway is very solid and completely serviceable. What was not in such good shape was the "taxi" areas from the hangars to the runway. Running on the eastern edge of the runaway is a depression that serves to allow water runoff along the runway. This is a depression, a ditch if you will, that runs approx. 1500' or so along the edge of the runway. In order to taxi to the runway from the hangars on the east side of the runway one must cross this depression. Well, all the rain in the past 2-3 weeks has left the ground pretty saturated. Even though things were drying out this past week this soil was still extremely soft.
We had our monthly EAA chapter meeting this past Saturday. After the meeting I agreed to give some rides in the RV. The area that I normally use to access the runway was non usable. So, I was taxiing further south to an area that had more grass and a more stable soil base. We had already had 4 planes taxi across that area. They all did well. I actually taxied across this area to get to the runway with no problems. I took the first passenger up and flew around. We landed with no issues. When it came time to cross this depression again to return to the hangar my nose gear sank deep into the soft soil.
Hopefully you can see from the photo how deep the rut is that my nose gear made. It was at least 6" deep and as wide as the gear fairing. I new this area would be soft so I kept as much speed up as I could as I crossed. Never the less, once my nose gear made it to this area it bogged down into the soft soil. I never let the airplane stop moving forward but I did increase the throttle. In fact, I went to pretty much full throttle at the point the nose gear began sinking. The airplane kept moving forward and within just a second or so we were free of the soft soil and moving along the grass again toward my hangar.
I had a couple of guys comment that they watched as the nose gear "bounced" when we crossed this area and were wondering if I might have a problem. They stated that when the nose gear bounced the nose wheel came up off of the ground then back down. Apparently it oscillated one or two times but then settled down as we rolled out of the soft soil.
I did inspect the gear and wheel afterward and noticed no ill effects from the incident. I ended up taking 3 more individuals up after this. The next day I decided to remove all three wheel pants, check the air pressure on the tires and inspect for any damage. I usually keep 45 psi in the tires. They were down to around 25 psi. I filled all three tires back up to the 45 psi setting. As for inspections, other than having some mud caked into some of the screw heads holding the nose wheel pant there were no anomollies to the appearance of the wheel pants or gear what so ever. Everything was normal. I did not remove the leg gear fairing as there appeared to be no damage or adverse performance at all.
I really do not believe I could have experienced this soft soil without some adverse effect if it were not for having this gear brace on. I am thankful it was in place and did its job.
Given this experience I feel compelled to say something about landing on grass. I know many are reluctant to land their nose gear RV on grass. All I can say is this 9A has flown every flight with at least one landing and taxi of each flight on this grass strip and grass taxi area. I believe it is possible to do so successfully. There are a couple of things I do on every landing that will make a difference when landing on hard or soft surfaces. Keep as much weight off of the nose gear as you can by keeping the stick back AT ALL times when on the ground. On landing DO NOT let the nose gear touch the ground until you just absolutely cannot keep it off any longer. Do this by keeping the stick tucked into your gut as long as the plane will allow it on roll out. This goes for landings on pavement as well as grass. This practice will make a difference.
One other point concerning building. I new I would be flying off of grass when I started building. A prime goal of my build was to keep the weight as light as possible on the nose gear. This was the motivation for many decisions I made concerning the firewall forward components. I have a Catto Prop (12 lbs total weight), ECi IO-340 that gave me 360 engine like HP at 320 engine like weights, light weight SkyTech starter, Plane Power alternator, etc. Basically every decision on what to put on the nose of the airplane had a high priority of keeping weight to a minimum. Here are my weights calculated for my Weight & Balance (fully painted, empty fuel, 6 quarts of oil):
Right Wheel 425
Left Wheel 430
Nose Wheel 252
Total 1107
C.G. 78.82
Just as an additional note, I do not have the skid plate or the nose gear axle mod from Anti-Splat. I do have the Grove wheel and axle instead of the standard Vans setup.
Well, I hope this is a helpful data point to anyone building or thinking about whether they may need the Anti-Splat nose brace.
Live Long and Prosper!
I have a 9A that lives on a grass field. As most everyone knows we here in Oklahoma have had quite a few severe storms over the past few weeks. Tornadoes have caused a great deal of damage to this area. In addition to tornadoes these storms have brought a great deal of rain in a short amount of a few days. Our private grass strip has weathered the storms well. The runway is very solid and completely serviceable. What was not in such good shape was the "taxi" areas from the hangars to the runway. Running on the eastern edge of the runaway is a depression that serves to allow water runoff along the runway. This is a depression, a ditch if you will, that runs approx. 1500' or so along the edge of the runway. In order to taxi to the runway from the hangars on the east side of the runway one must cross this depression. Well, all the rain in the past 2-3 weeks has left the ground pretty saturated. Even though things were drying out this past week this soil was still extremely soft.
We had our monthly EAA chapter meeting this past Saturday. After the meeting I agreed to give some rides in the RV. The area that I normally use to access the runway was non usable. So, I was taxiing further south to an area that had more grass and a more stable soil base. We had already had 4 planes taxi across that area. They all did well. I actually taxied across this area to get to the runway with no problems. I took the first passenger up and flew around. We landed with no issues. When it came time to cross this depression again to return to the hangar my nose gear sank deep into the soft soil.
Hopefully you can see from the photo how deep the rut is that my nose gear made. It was at least 6" deep and as wide as the gear fairing. I new this area would be soft so I kept as much speed up as I could as I crossed. Never the less, once my nose gear made it to this area it bogged down into the soft soil. I never let the airplane stop moving forward but I did increase the throttle. In fact, I went to pretty much full throttle at the point the nose gear began sinking. The airplane kept moving forward and within just a second or so we were free of the soft soil and moving along the grass again toward my hangar.
I had a couple of guys comment that they watched as the nose gear "bounced" when we crossed this area and were wondering if I might have a problem. They stated that when the nose gear bounced the nose wheel came up off of the ground then back down. Apparently it oscillated one or two times but then settled down as we rolled out of the soft soil.
I did inspect the gear and wheel afterward and noticed no ill effects from the incident. I ended up taking 3 more individuals up after this. The next day I decided to remove all three wheel pants, check the air pressure on the tires and inspect for any damage. I usually keep 45 psi in the tires. They were down to around 25 psi. I filled all three tires back up to the 45 psi setting. As for inspections, other than having some mud caked into some of the screw heads holding the nose wheel pant there were no anomollies to the appearance of the wheel pants or gear what so ever. Everything was normal. I did not remove the leg gear fairing as there appeared to be no damage or adverse performance at all.
I really do not believe I could have experienced this soft soil without some adverse effect if it were not for having this gear brace on. I am thankful it was in place and did its job.
Given this experience I feel compelled to say something about landing on grass. I know many are reluctant to land their nose gear RV on grass. All I can say is this 9A has flown every flight with at least one landing and taxi of each flight on this grass strip and grass taxi area. I believe it is possible to do so successfully. There are a couple of things I do on every landing that will make a difference when landing on hard or soft surfaces. Keep as much weight off of the nose gear as you can by keeping the stick back AT ALL times when on the ground. On landing DO NOT let the nose gear touch the ground until you just absolutely cannot keep it off any longer. Do this by keeping the stick tucked into your gut as long as the plane will allow it on roll out. This goes for landings on pavement as well as grass. This practice will make a difference.
One other point concerning building. I new I would be flying off of grass when I started building. A prime goal of my build was to keep the weight as light as possible on the nose gear. This was the motivation for many decisions I made concerning the firewall forward components. I have a Catto Prop (12 lbs total weight), ECi IO-340 that gave me 360 engine like HP at 320 engine like weights, light weight SkyTech starter, Plane Power alternator, etc. Basically every decision on what to put on the nose of the airplane had a high priority of keeping weight to a minimum. Here are my weights calculated for my Weight & Balance (fully painted, empty fuel, 6 quarts of oil):
Right Wheel 425
Left Wheel 430
Nose Wheel 252
Total 1107
C.G. 78.82
Just as an additional note, I do not have the skid plate or the nose gear axle mod from Anti-Splat. I do have the Grove wheel and axle instead of the standard Vans setup.
Well, I hope this is a helpful data point to anyone building or thinking about whether they may need the Anti-Splat nose brace.
Live Long and Prosper!
