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How to avoid a smashed fuselage?

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Coloradodan

Joined: 11 Jun 2008
Posts: 31
Location: Frederick, CO

Posted: Thu Jun 19, 2008 12:49 pm Post subject: How to avoid a smashed fuselage?

I have recently looked at (2) 801's that had the fuselage just behind the main gear bent up from "bumpy" landings.  One hit a ditch in a field the other was a throttle off airport landing.  Anyway has anyone beefed up or considered beefing up the area around the main gear attachment? If so I'd like to see or hear about your plans.



Thanks,

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_________________
Crashed and destroyed 801 back the the drawing board.

n85ae

Joined: 14 Mar 2007
Posts: 403

Posted: Thu Jun 19, 2008 2:56 pm Post subject: Re: How to avoid a smashed fuselage?

Can you describe the bending in more detail?



Thanks,

Jeff

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Coloradodan

Joined: 11 Jun 2008
Posts: 31
Location: Frederick, CO

Posted: Fri Jun 20, 2008 6:10 am Post subject: Re: How to avoid a smashed fuselage?

The hard landing was crushed up the starboard side from the bottom frame into the side reinforcement.  The ditch incident had only bent the bottom frame on the port side just behind the main gear.



I guess I'm wondering about a more robust bottom frame for landing in the rough.

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Crashed and destroyed 801 back the the drawing board.

n85ae

Joined: 14 Mar 2007
Posts: 403

Posted: Fri Jun 20, 2008 7:14 am Post subject: Re: How to avoid a smashed fuselage?

Any photo's? When you say side reinforcement, are you referring to

the channels that go between the rear wing attach brackets, and the gear attach?



Jeff

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Coloradodan

Joined: 11 Jun 2008
Posts: 31
Location: Frederick, CO

Posted: Fri Jun 20, 2008 7:21 am Post subject: Re: How to avoid a smashed fuselage?

Unfortunately both aircraft were already repaired.

The one repair was up the entire side the other was just a small patch on the bottom.



The descriptions were given to me by the owners.



I hope the list would provide some feed back if this was common?

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Crashed and destroyed 801 back the the drawing board.

n85ae

Joined: 14 Mar 2007
Posts: 403

Posted: Fri Jun 20, 2008 7:32 am Post subject: Re: How to avoid a smashed fuselage?

I don't think there's a huge number of 801's out there to really know. I 

just walked out to the shop and looked at mine, as I am getting ready to join

the front/rear sections. It is fairly stout in the area of the gear attach, and 

the forward sides are .032. The one place I could see being a weak 

area is those side channels.  It would not be too difficult to make a 4130

steel subassembly that connected for example the Rear wing attach to the

gear attach fittings.



better piloting would also take of the problem as well. 



By the way I'm from Wondervu Colo off Hwy 72, Mom lives in Longmont. 

Currently I'm in the Chicago area.



Jeff

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ggower_99(at)yahoo.com
Guest

Posted: Fri Jun 20, 2008 9:50 am Post subject: How to avoid a smashed fuselage?

I think, something has to give up.  this bending will lower the inertia of a hard landing instread of the pilot or passengers bones...  

  

 Remember the cars from the '50s  (DeSoto, Plymouth, Studebaker, etc.)?  This cars were  dificult to crush (compared to new ones), will hardly bend  when a new ones is almost total lost, but how about the driver and passengers. 

  

Nothing can be better than practice the landings...    

  

Hope some of the old timers in the list can remeber about a pilot that used to land very often his 701 in areas with lots of rocks near the sea shore.   

  

This pilot added a cable from the landing gear (bolts of the axle)  to the lower support in the engine mount, where the floats bolt on.  This was intneded to lower the handle force from the landing gear over the gear support in the fuselage in vry bumpy strips. 

  

We had made a couple of "bouncy" landings with no harm to the airplane.  To bend something  has to be very violent...   

  

Saludos 

Gary Gower 

701 912S  197 hrs and counting.



--- On Fri, 6/20/08, Coloradodan <dfanning1(at)gmail.com> wrote:

 [quote]From: Coloradodan <dfanning1(at)gmail.com>

Subject: Re: How to avoid a smashed fuselage?

To: zenith701801-list(at)matronics.com

Date: Friday, June 20, 2008, 11:21 AM



[quote]--> Zenith701801-List message posted by: "Coloradodan" <dfanning1(at)gmail.com>  Unfortunately both aircraft were already repaired. The one repair was up the entire side the other was just a small patch on the bottom.  The descriptions were given to me by the owners.  I hope the list would provide some feed back if this was common?  -------- Don't go looking for happiness...we'll find you.     Read this topic online here:  http://forums.matronics.com/viewtopic.php?p=188763#188763                [quote][b]

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keystone(at)gci.net
Guest

Posted: Sat Jun 21, 2008 8:37 am Post subject: How to avoid a smashed fuselage?

There are now three known cases of a bent landing gear on an 801.  I bent mine hitting a rock on a very soft beach 2 years ago.  I should have known better but I decided to take off when the tide was relatively high.  The sand was softer than I thought.  I had a hard time accelerating but once I got started I did not want to stop because I was concerned that the nose wheel would dig in and flipping the plane.  It took probably 2000 or 2500’ to get the 801 into the air.  I never thought I would have that long of a take off run, so I did not look that far down the beach.  Needless to say it was at sea level and a 50 degree day.  There were two of us on board and probably 30 gallons of fuel.  I have swapped out the 8.00 on the mains for 8.50s, so I have a little more floatation.  I have been is this situation before and the sand is soft enough that you cannot accelerate.  Every now and then you hit a harder patch and you go a little faster.    

   

In Alaska when you are landing off airport there is a saying that it is not if you will wreck your plane it is when.  When you are landing and taking off an area that changes each time you land there things change.  Unexpected things happen.  Was there a storm that changed the material on the beach?  Did it bring in some soft sand?  Where on the beach does the sand look hardest?  What does soft sand look like?  Is the slope of the beach steeper or flatter today than yesterday?  Is the beach wavy?  Did the last high water event add a drainage channel across your sand bar?  Did the material the sand bar change?  I have witnessed and experienced all of the above over the last 30 years.  Even with experience you can only tell so much from the air!  

   

In Alaska, we talk about where you want the plane to fail when you hit something.  You have two choices, the landing gear or the fuselage.    The accepted conclusion is that you are better off to have the landing gear fail.  You may need a new landing gear and prop.  If you make the landing gear strong enough it tears up the fuselage, you need to replace the longerons, the prop and the bottom of plane.    

   

Anyway, I hit a rock out at Hells Hole that rotated the left landing gear rearward.  I flew it home and landed uneventfully.  I straightened out what I could straighten out and replaced what I could not get straight.  I ended up replacing an 8” section of the longeron.  I added stiffeners mainly to help flatten out the skin.    

   

Here I thought I would have the nose gear fail and really tear things up.    

   

Bill Wilcox  

N801BW  

360 hrs  

Working on project house rather than flying  

Looking forward to installing floats this summer

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