To: flyrotary@lancaironline.net
Date: Sun, 6 Jun 2004 17:22:26 -0400
Subject: Re: [FlyRotary] Not my best landing
Message-ID: <20040606.173847.-297683.4.jschuber@juno.com>
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From: Terry L Schubert <jschuber@juno.com>

Dear Steve,

I guess you are feeling badly enough about your landing.  I did mine on
the 3rd flight.  PLEASE do not believe you "have it out of your system"!

My next gear up landing was at OSH with 15,000 witnesses and a 20kt cross
wind.  "There are those who have and those that will and those that will
land gear up AGAIN!"

When a Cozy lands gear up it puts considerable pressure on the side skin
under the canard.  I suggest you do a coin tap test for delaminations in
the area directly under the canard to about a foot below the canard. 
That is the usual damage area.  Damage is not noticeable until you do
that.

Landing distractions will continue to occur.  I recommend you get that
warning system & AEX made fool proof.

Best wishes,


Terry Schubert
Central States Association
Newsletter Editor


On Sun, 6 Jun 2004 12:19:14 -0400 "Steve Brooks" <steve@tsisp.com>
writes:
> I made my 6th flight today, and after flying for .8 hours, came in to 
> land
> after I noticed that I had a vacuum failure, and did not put the 
> nose gear
> down.  Talk about running my day, it definitely was not good, but 
> could have
> been much worse.
> 
> I was evidently distracted by wondering about what happened to the 
> vacuum,
> instead of doing my landing checklist.  I was worried that I could 
> have lost
> a belt, so I was keeping a watchful eye on the temperatures.  I 
> did,
> however, turn on the boost pump, and check fuel.  I haven't been 
> used to
> having to put the gear down, and coupled with the distraction, and
> stupidity, was the formal for a problem.
> 
> I came in high and a little on the fast side, in fact, I couldn't 
> figure out
> why I wasn't descending, and bleeding speed.  How about the fact 
> that the
> gear was up.  I was deploying both rudders, and marveling over how 
> well that
> worked to get the altitude problem solved.  Apparently the AEX was 
> in the
> process of extending the gear when I touched down, which probably 
> saved me
> from allot more damage.  I landed a little faster than I had been, 
> and sat
> it down without letting it float along like all of my other 
> landings.  If I
> had landed like I did before, the extra 4 or 5 seconds could have 
> let the
> gear get all the way down...but it didn't.
> 
> Damage was really no too bad.  Ground off the face of the landing 
> gear strut
> about 1/8" ground the front of the castoring nose wheel casting flat 
> in one
> spot, and ground off about half of the hockey puck.  As soon as I 
> realized
> what had happened, I pulled back all the way on the elevator, and 
> hit the
> nose gear switch, which was already turning.  The nose came up and I 
> was
> still rolling at maybe 20-30 MPH.  I pulled off on a taxiway, shut 
> down, and
> got out to inspect the damage.  I expected the worst, but really was 
> pretty
> minimal.  I decided that everything was good enough to taxi back to 
> the
> hanger, where I pulled the nose cover to check for any other 
> damage.
> Everything inside looked fine.  The nose lift is fine.  The landing 
> gear
> strut will have to be replaced, as well as the lower casting on the 
> nose
> wheel assembly.  I may forget allot of things in the future, but 
> I'll bet
> that landing gear won't be one of them.
> 
> I pulled the engine cowling, and the belt on the smog pump that I 
> use for
> vacuum was fine, so I still don't know the cause of the vacuum 
> problem.  I
> need to pull the canard, and I/P cover anyway to troubleshoot a NAV 
> system
> problem, so I'll get to the bottom of it when I do that.  I'll have 
> plenty
> of time while I'm waiting on parts.
> The only damage to the nose at all was a couple of cracks in the 
> micro
> around the hockey puck.  I'll have to sand it down to get the rest 
> of the
> puck off anyways, so that isn't a big deal.
> 
> The good news is that my noise in the right main wheel is fixed.  I 
> took it
> apart, really didn't find anything, but I repacked the bearings, and 
> put it
> all back together and the noise is gone.  I guess that it must have 
> been an
> alignment issue with the disk or something.  I was careful to snug 
> the bolts
> with the same torque while mounting the disk to the wheel.  I think 
> that may
> have been the issue.
> 
> Also the engine continues to run superbly.  I still am running 
> warmer than I
> like, but I have a plan to remedy that.  The rotary engine is so 
> smooth and
> quiet that you forget it's running almost.
> 
> Steve Brooks
> Cozy MKIV N75CZ
> Turbo rotary
> 
> 
> 
> 
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