It was a bad day at the airport.
I bought a project that I've been working on about 6 months to get ready
for inspection and was to the point that I was doing engine runs and taxiing
it around the airport.
It has a Saturn engine (125 HP) and retractable tricycle gear. The main
gear is the stock gear mounted behind the main spar. During full power run ups
I heard a pop and shortly after that a cracking noise, after which the main
gear retracted about half way. The problem was the brackets that hold the
spring bar to the spar broke just above where they attach at the bottom part
of
the spar. This allowed the top part that holds the locking mechanism to be
pushed up when the gear tried to retract. This caused the spar to crack above
the
holes drilled to hold the brackets in the top part of the spar. The crack
runs parallel along the spar the entire width inside the fuselage.
Now the question for you engineer types!
I'm trying to figure a way to repair it without having to completely tear
the fuselage apart. I was wondering if I could glue the spar back and run
doublers on each side of the spar with them continuing though the sides out to
the wing attach points? I'm also going to remove the gear which I never liked
and change to the Grove type mains and make it a tail dragger.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
Don Ray
N880DL
KR2XL
Waco, TX
