Landing Gear Bolts

[SuberAvid 617]

I've probaby done more than my share of dumb stunts for the amount of time I have been flying; one of them was changing tanks while cruising along at 50' AGL, but that will be for another time. This topic is landing gear bolts. Everyone knows that the Avid only has one bolt holding the tail spring to the fusalage. Because of my poor piloting skills and willingness to put my plane into some rougher places, this takes a beating. A couple of years ago while a friend and I were out scouting some hunting areas I landed at a strip that has a few cabins on it. When I turned around to taxi back there was a pop and my tail hit the ground. It kind of messes up the rudder when that happens but not as bad as it could have been if it had happened while landing. The fortunate thing was there were a couple of guys there at the cabins and one of them had a can full of bolts. I found one that would work and we were back in business.

Yesterday I finally had to give up the skis and put the Bushwheels back on (I just love the way the plane looks with those things . While doing a carefull inspection of things I noticed that the head of one of my landing gear bolts looked a little out of alignment. Knowing tht I had not changed these since I put on the airdale wide gear (pretty dumb) I decided I would try to be smart this time and replace all of the gear leg bolts before a disaster happened. It turned out that a couple of the bolts had some visible bending stress. I thought I would pass this on just in case there are others that that may want to watch for this as well. I plan to change mine on a regular basis now; probably every other year if not sooner, depending on how rough my landings had been. I think the skis landing on ice are probably some of the hardest on the gear and these bolts but I have landed on some gravel strips with some pretty big moguls.

[flattie45 17]

It seems that a lot of pilots aren't aware of the stress involved with ski operations. On my Cessna 140 I have solid axles. I am not sure if they are legally required for skis, but it is a very good idea. There is no air pressure to soften the impacts while on skis. Keeping an eye on everything related to the landing gear is a good idea.

On the Searey owners site somebody posted pictures of his Searey with wheel skis. It seems the Searey is notorious for landing gear failures, often referred to as, "painting a white stripe", the result of the fiberglass hull skidding down the runway. It has even happened just while taxiing around. I can't see skis on a Searey as a great idea. Oh well, more power to him.

But yeah, to sum it up, keep on eye on yer landin' gear.

-Nate

[C5Engineer 1170]

I plan to put new bolts in mine when I put my Kitfox Gear legs on here pretty soon. Mine are probably the original ones from the early 90's. I replaced a lot of stuff when I did the refurb but there's a still few things left to get to.