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So, I see we have two more pretenders to the Towbar Bonehead Club. Membership, however, requires a full takeoff and landing with the Official Lancair Towbar being the last to leave the ground and the first to touchdown, consequential damages notwithstanding.
Byron, I too was distracted after pulling my 320 from the hangar, forgetting the towbar. I had no problem taxiing and taking off with the bar attached. A 40 minute flight revealed no drag penalty since the bar tucked up nicely as did the nose gear door, save for the warp allowing the bar to trail out the rear. Upon return to the airport, I made the worst approach to landing ever (high, wide and too fast) and informed the tower I was going around. Overheard on the radio was "Hey, the plane behind the Cessna has a towbar hanging out!" I screamed "Whooo Meeee?" The subsequent landing was going great (slow, nose high) until I heard the double click, where the bar, bouncing off the runway, yielded to the prop clearing it out of my rollout path. Taxiing in, I asked the tower if I could pick up the towbar later -- they rudely informed me to get the bar "Now!" since it was still on the runway, to the right of the touchdown.
The damage was limited to a warped nose gear door, (later fixed with a heat gun), a slightly bent towbar and a 1/2 inch by 2 inch corkscrew of aluminum at the end of one prop blade (Hartzell always has a blade on the shelf for me).
Analysis showed that the bar had no problem scraping along the pavement, even at the high speeds during takeoff roll and, luckily, no Chicago pothole or pavement crack impeded the slide. After rotation, the towbar dropped down and the spinning nose wheel disengaged the locking pin as evidenced by the rubber mark on the bar and pin. At touchdown, the bar bounced into the prop path and was knocked to the left (clockwise prop rotation), where the finger that normally fits over the tow bracket peg acted as a spring when it hit the peg and thrust the bar horizontally to the right where it ended up resting on the runway. Whew!
With my next towbar, I enlarged the towbar hole that is placed on the bracket peg opposite the locking pin so that it might be possible to shake off the bar should this happen again. Another suggestion is to place the aircraft ignition key on the ring attached to the pin that holds the towbar halves together -- You should have some idea where the towbar is when you place the key in the ignition switch. Finally, the towbar is never left attached to the plane when it is outside the hangar.
The dark angel is always messing with something, but the good angel keeps pulling me from the fire and putting me back in the frying pan.
Scott Krueger
N92EX
LML website: http://www.olsusa.com/Users/Mkaye/maillist.html
LML Builders' Bookstore: http://www.buildersbooks.com/lancair
Please send your photos and drawings to marvkaye@olsusa.com.
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