Greetings team,
As I read through the various theories of why the pin holes elongate I'm
left with a question that nobody seems to be asking (or maybe somebody did ask
and I missed it).
This is a little out of my area of expertise, but it seems rational to me
that either a mono or a conventional gear Europa, i.e., one with a tailwheel,
would transfer significantly more stress loads to the components in the rear
of the aircraft, thus leading to more wear on everything back there. By
contrast, the trigear would dampen those stress loads by virtue of the main gear
being a considerable distance from the parts in question, thus damping any
forces transferred to the tail area. Stresses transferred by a trigear would
further be damped by the spring action of the main gear legs and the tires
(tyres).
Has anyone ever correlated pin wear to landing gear type? Are there more
mono's and conventional gear Europa's showing pin wear and or hole elongation
than trigears?
In my case, N245E, a trigear, now has a bit over 100 hours TT. About 90% of
the take offs and landings thus far have been made from my grass strip and my
pip pins are still tight as a tick. I have observed no increased play in the
tailplanes and only a slight amount of play in the trim tabs and that hasn't
changed since day one. I've also looked closely at all the hardware in the
tail and I cannot detect any wear on any components whatsoever. I know this is
anecdotal at best, but it seams reasonable for those in the know to correla
te pin wear to landing gear type as they chase down the root cause of the wear
that caused the tailplane flutter.
Regards,
John Lawton
Whitwell, TN (TN89)
N245E - Flying
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