Wanted to share some hard-learned experience...
 

Hi folks,

Just wanted to share some hard-learned experience with my fellow newbies. Second flight of the day last Saturday morning. Flying my landing approach, bringing my LT-40 in for a nice slow floating landing. About fifty feet out I thought "Hello, that nose-wheel doesn't look quite right to me!" It appeared to be swinging slightly with the correcting manouvers I was making. Well, what would have been a greased three-point landing turned into a two-and-a-bit point landing when the nose gear folded up under the fuselage the second it touched terra firma.

Turns out that the engine vibration had shaken three of the four mounting bolts for the nose-wheel bracket out, and the fourth bolt was only in for a few turns. The wheel was basically being supported by the control rod! When the wheel took the weight the fourth bolt bent out of the blind nut and splintered part of the firewall away. Luckily the damage was only marginal - a little epoxy and a new pack of #4-0.5" bolts and the Kadet's ready to fly again.

Lessons learned? Repeat after me: Loctite is your friend... Loctite is your friend... Loctite is your friend...

Threadlocking Compound

;)

Wanted to share some hard-learned experience...
 

Allways preflight allways preflight.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ;)

Wanted to share some hard-learned experience...
 

Ironically I'd checked the bolts to the engine mount, the muffler, and all the hex bolts to the control arms just prior to that flight. The one blasted thing I DIDN'T check was those darned mounting bracket bolts! :rolleyes:

Just the balsa gods teaching me a lesson, I guess ;)

Wanted to share some hard-learned experience...
 

It always seems that the thing that will fail is that one item you didn't/forgot to check. Murphy's Law, I guess.

Wanted to share some hard-learned experience...
 

Thread-locker and not making three point landings will do the trick. Be kind to your nose gear, land on the mains first. Three point landings are for taildraggers ;) .

Wanted to share some hard-learned experience...
 

hei how much is Loctite paying you for advertising??!! hehe just joking man ;)

yeap be gentle on the landings and just make sure you make sure that every nut bolt and screw is for sure tighten properly.

Wanted to share some hard-learned experience...
 

i just use thin CA, works great :)

Wanted to share some hard-learned experience...
 

That is why I have always liked taildraggers better. Even full scale planes have trouble with nosegear.

Wanted to share some hard-learned experience...
 

The same thing happened to me while learning to fly with my LT40. Except all four screws fell off mine. I was practicing approaches, and noticed something hanging off the front of the plane. It was the nose wheel dangling from it's pushrod. So, I tried to land it. I cut the engine a little before flaring and managed to bring it down on the main wheels while holding the nose up. Then it was just a matter of letting the nose drop and slide to a stop on the grass. The nose wheel remained attached to the pushrod, and bounced around harmlessly on the grass. No damage, just grass stains. I'll admit, I was lucky in the way I got the plane to land. It really looked nice. I knew I was ready to solo after that.

In addition to lock tite, I now use lock washers on engine mounts and landing gears. I also put a piece of fuel tubing at the ends of the landing gear axels, in case the collars don't hold.

Wanted to share some hard-learned experience...
 

Ho-ho, I wish! (*palms brown-paper bag stuffed with non-sequential notes*)

*ahem*

Yeah, I'm still new at this - can you tell? ;) There have been fourteen flights on my LT-40 so far, and I've flown twelve of them. Out of those twelve flights I've landed ten, and although a good few of them haven't been exactly the most *greased* of touchdowns, I've not done any irreperable damage (heck, I'm even using the same prop as I started out with!) I'm sure my landing gear will be thanking me when my practising starts to pay off :p

Hey, good ideas! I'll be adding those before my next flight!

Wanted to share some hard-learned experience...
 

One thing I've noticed about the increasing numbers of RTF and ARFs that are more and more pre-built is that little things like those screws seem to fall out more and more often. I love the way the Alpha trainer flys, but I've seen half a dozen things go wrong with them because the factory had something in too loose or too tight. And it's not just Alpha's either. I'm not to the point of telling students to undo every nut and bolt on the ARF and re-install it, but I'm getting close :p

That said, even experienced pilots have things fall off in flight. I've lost count of the number of nuts and bolts that have fallen of my own planes over the years. The carb parts are the most annoying, let me tell you.

Wanted to share some hard-learned experience...
 

hahahha yeah.. that does suck!!

when you have a prop fly off when you are learning to fly sucks also.. never heard an engine rev that high.. :rolleyes:

flying with a head cold isnt the smartest thing to do either!! stuffed one in that way.. just couldnt think and see straight.. the ground jumped like 20 ft!!! total loss. :( poor tt t-2000 "was" a nice plane

Wanted to share some hard-learned experience...
 

yeah nothing like seeing your 4* zip by and bomb drop the gear just like you planned it!

Wanted to share some hard-learned experience...
 

From an optimists perspective, your nose wheel did not fall off and get lost in the field - a bonus :) Actually I had a similar problem last week when one of my wheel collars fell off the axle, causing a wheel to fall off in flight. Brand new wheel and collar ! It was the Dubro collar, that had the toy allen "wenches" included with the collars package to tighten the allen screws. The allen wrench (1/16) is such low grade garbage, even for a childs toy, that had difficulty tightening a loose screw with no tension without stripping !! I thought I had additionally tightened it enough with a small screwdriver, until I could get a real allen key, but I guess is still shook loose. (I even went to Ace, but they where out of stock). OK, OK "Loctite should have been my friend, Loctite should have been my friend, ...." In the end I give it a slow greaser landing that, of course caused it to flip over on ground contact, but no damage, put on another old wheel, 1/4" smaller with a borrowed collar and flew for the rest of the day.

Wanted to share some hard-learned experience...
 

Well this one was kit-built, so I'm afraid the blame falls squarely on the shoulders of my ground crew. I'll be having words with them later...

:rolleyes:

Falcon 56
 

I had an engine vibrate loose on my Falcon 56 that
almost cost me the airplane ... I have epoxied the mounting bolts in. It is fine now. Scarey stuff! I'm glad it didn't hurt anyone.

Wanted to share some hard-learned experience...
 

Montague,

Let's try not to let our bais show too much :D

Montague's comments apply to all models...

One of the things that I have found that has limited my flying time this year (besides family, and work) is the amount of maintenance that I feel is required to keep a plane airworthy.

for every 45min - 1 hr flying time I probably spend at least that much checking things over on the bench and at the field.

I used to not be this way. But I got tired of crashing due to carelessness.

I would suggest a written preflight checklist and bench list

Things to check motor mounts, Screws hinges, prop (for nicks) switch batteries, etc.. Basically go over your plane on a regular basis. (The plane you save will be your own :D )

Wanted to share some hard-learned experience...
 

Good advise from a senior member called "Crashem" :D

Wanted to share some hard-learned experience...
 

hahahah i laugh at that!!! if you think thats bad... GET A HELI!!!!!! 1 hr of flying='s about 3 hrs of maintenance. :eek: :mad:

Wanted to share some hard-learned experience...
 

Well, actually, I'm not biased against RTFs and ARFs. I think they are the best way in to the air fast, and you can't beat the prices.

However, when you put together the plane yourself, you learn things. I've been discovering that many of my students have no idea what is inside a fuel tank, ie, the workings of the clunk and vent line are a mystery. Why? Becaue the tank was already put together and installed.

I learned on an ARF myself, but it wasn't nearly as assembled as the RTFs of today. I actually had to bend pushrods and brass tubing (*gasp*), and install servos and such. :D. You learn a surprising amount about your airplane in the building process. The less building, the less you know, the harder it is to trouble shoot with out help.

(actually, I built a Bud Nolsen kit as my first, got the ARF part way though the Nolsen kit because the kit was taking me so long to build, but that's another story).

Anyway, my point is that many students don't even know some of these screws even exist, never mind think that one might work it's way loose in the air. It's not really a problem at all, they will learn, all in good time. There really isn't any reason a beginner needs to be building their fuel system after all. And when it breaks, they'll learn all they need to know. I got to demonstrate to several students how a split fuel tank will affect engine runs the other day, for example :D.

It's just that as an instructor, I have to keep in mind that the guy showing up with an RTF trainer probibly has very little clue about the internal workings, so that's more info I may need to impart along the way.

Wanted to share some hard-learned experience...
 

elevator_up,

You're comment was pretty funny reminds me of a line from the movie "better off dead"

GraupnerFan

Your comment is one of the reasons my shuttle is still in the basement that and the fact I keep forgetting to by the gyro.

Montague,
all good points just wanted to clarify that ARFs RTfs and kits all require similiar maintenance after all only difference is amount of prefabrication done at the "factory"

BTW I chose the Screen name Crashem because in my youth I tended to learn things the "hard way" rather then taken what in hindsight was some sound advice.

Checklist... We Dont need no stinkin checklist...Bang... Splinters...postmortum forget to check battery level... Woops live and (hopefully) learn

Wanted to share some hard-learned experience...
 

Lesson every time you see something dangling bring it for a landing and cut the engine on final. The stopped propeller acts as a break and if the dangling thing is near the propeller like a muffler or something, figured it out

Wanted to share some hard-learned experience...
 

Crashem,
Yeah, I totally agree that they require the same level of maintenance. My point was that because it came from the factory pre-built, it's more likely that it won't occur to someone that it requires inspection, that's all.

That's not to say that kit builders or scratch builders never skimp on maintenance. :D

Heard at the field the other day:
"hey, where's my nose wheel? Anyone see where my nosewheel went?" :D wasn't me, but I was watching the flight and I didn't see the wheel fall off either.

Oh, as for silly things I've actually done.... I recently took off with one aileron pushrod one hole farther out on the horn than the other one. No crash, but it sure flew funny. :D

Wanted to share some hard-learned experience...
 

I'd sure hate to see your dry-cleaning bill!

:eek:

Wanted to share some hard-learned experience...
 

Actually, it wasn't that bad at all. The plane rolled in both directions. It just went one way much much faster than the other is all. And it would snap out of loops at odd times, which made no sense at all. So it wasn't scary, it was just really really strange and had me wondering what the heck was going on. Had me very confused until I noticed the problem. Doh!