Had a little incident with my Alpha 60 and found something that other Alpha 60 pilots should be aware of. I went out Sunday for some flight testing after fixing the aileron torque rods (they where not glued in at the factory adding to a flutter problem I'm chasing), and got one good flight in (dang flutter was still there too, but that's another issue). When I started the take-off roll on the second flight, just as I started to pull up elevator, the nose gear collapsed under it. This was the take-off run for the seventh flight, it has all of 16 landings with almost all as nose high as possible on the mains, and no landings or abuse to the nose gear.

Upon examination it appears the nose wheel bracket gave way because of one simple fact - its too small for this size and weight of plane. It's so small I think its suited for a .21 sized plane. I've received some correspondence from another Alpha 60 owner who has had the same issue with his and he concluded the same thing, especially considering this an 8 pound plane that under normal training will see more than its fair share of abuse and hard landings on the nose gear. My choices right now are install an after market nose gear suitable for a .60 sized plane, or convert to a tail dragger.

This is a design flaw I found out about the hard way and wanted to pass on. If you have one of these planes, keep tabs on the NLG bracket to make sure you don't have to deal with it after the fact.

Hogflyer