Hi Netters.
You can take all the precautions that you want to create the perfect tail
whel spring and find that it was in vain.Years ago a friend meticulously
suitably hardened his to what was to be the correct hardnes. He was
performing high speed taxi tests on a short runway with high rock and trees
at one end. He cauciously accelerated and was almost at the end when he got
his tail up. I suggested that he should go back as far as possible and give
it full power, raise the tail , power back and run down the field tail up
for a bit then slowdown. He said "come in with me" ( I knew that it was not
legal for me to do so). He gave it full power but before he raised the tail
we found ourselves at 20 feet up.The rock at the end looked like mountains!
He cut the power but it kept on at 20 feet. He kept bringing the stick back
to slow it down. I fealt the stall occur.The bottom dropped out, It hit
fairly flat but hard. It bounced and eventually stopped. There was a new
problem. The tail of the fuselage was dragging on the ground. The tail
spring had broken into 5 pieces.To get it off the field we went to a local
auto wrecker and had a temporary tail spring made. The man took an old auto
spring,asked "where do you want the first bend". He applied the torch and
bent it as necessary. "What about the bolt holes?" Zap with the cutting
torch! We asked what about the tempering of the spring, to which he replied
" It's as good now as before I heated it". He was right.We bolted it into
place and got off the field. It worked perfectly and remained on the plane
thereafter with out ever having any further problems.
I sometimes wonder about all the fuss and blather that we worry about on
some parts. Sorry about the long winded tale.
Regards
Harold Woods
Orillia,ON.Can
haroldwo...@rogers.com
