Re: [Titanaircraft] Re: tail wheel

The reason I asked was because the brackets were designed to not crush the tube. I made the brackets in a V shape so they would be tangent to the tube and attached with enough rivets to hold them in place, but to shear off if overloaded. I was concerned with possible impacts that could deform the tube enough to prevent the stabilator control horn from moving through its full range.

Now I read that it has happened- a tail boom was deformed by a tail wheel bracket enough to limit pitch control. Many times I see Titans at airports. Sometimes the tail wheel brackets are attached with bolts or completely replaced with a newly designed bracket. Sometimes the new bracket is attached to the bottom of the boom tube. If the owner or pilot is around, I talk to them about the reason it was designed the way it was and I encourage the individual to install the original brackets with the original number of steel rivets.

If a tail wheel bracket is attached to the bottom of the boom tube instead of tangent and an unusually hard tail strike occurs, the boom tube will deform and the pitch control range is likely to be severely limited. Please consider this before modifying the tail wheel brackets.

If the aircraft was purchased used, maybe it would be a good idea to look at the manual, make sure the original brackets are installed and make sure they are attached with 5 steel rivets on each side.

By the way Richie, good reactions in a bad situation saved your neck. Good job!

  -- Guy

--- On Sat, 9/5/09, aero_richie <littlegrandhome@yahoo.com> wrote:

From: aero_richie <littlegrandhome@yahoo.com>
Subject: [Titanaircraft] Re: tail wheel
To: Titanaircraft@yahoogroups.com
Date: Saturday, September 5, 2009, 8:02 PM

 

The tailwheel assembly appears to be the factory version that everyone is referring to. And yessssss, you can rest assured that control movements are now checked very thouroughly before leaving terra firma. I've always done a very thorough preflight when I first take to flight for the day, but I was lax on my intermediate stops until this incident. It is as they always say, "Live and Learn!".

Richie and "Aunt Sally"

P.S. Come to think of it, who are "They".

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

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