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Yes, the struts need to be replaced when they lose their
pressure. We had one fail on John Halle's Legacy about three years ago and
the other one is still working fine, so the age limit is apparently
unpredictable. This is why the function of the struts on the landing gear
needs to be checked regularly. On the subject of the canopy struts, when
John and I were building his Legacy we noticed that the plans showed the canopy
struts mounted upside down, that is with the big end down toward the
firewall. In this configuration the canopy will bang open if let to it's
own devices. If the big end is up, toward the canopy, it will go into a
cushion mode just before fully open and not slam open so hard. We brought
this to Lancair's attention and I assumed the plans had been changed since
then. Silly me. I recently looked at the plans from a new kit
and discovered that in the canopy chapter, 9, the struts are illustrated on
pages 9-9, 9-18, and 9-24. On the first two pages the struts are now shown
correctly but on 9-24 they are still upside down. A couple weeks ago I was
in the build shop at Lancair and noticed that one of the multi-week Legacy
projects being worked on had the struts upside down, so it's possible to get it
wrong even with a 67% improvement of the plans. Here's tip for future
Legacy strut replacement: when the plane is complete the bolts holding the
struts to the firewall bracket are virtually impossible to get to so install the
lower strut end into its clevis without any loctite so the upper end can be
removed from the hinge and then the whole strut can be unscrewed from the lower
clevis. A little blue loctite on the upper clevis threads will keep
everything from coming apart. Works for me.
Leighton Mangels
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