First... DUH!!! You need brakes to maneuver an airplane with grocery cart steering. Enough said.
I must have had an original version of the parking brake on my plane because the gasket must have blown out when I stepped hard on the brakes after run-up. I needed to straighten out the nose wheel for takeoff. I do not recall soft brakes at that moment. Later I saw red brake fluid all over the floor and the rest from the reservoir had followed drying into pink goop along the firewall, but I was unaware of all this. It was a good thing I had so far held off putting in the interior mats...
Looking in the Spruce catalog at the latest parking brake I clearly see a different washer/gasket setup than I had on mine. If you have the rubber O ring gasket with no copper to retain the gasket shape, think about replacing it soon. but the story...
I was unconcerned as I veered slightly off centerline as the nose wheel touched down. The runway at S36 is narrow but so what. Touch of the petal and the view should change. Well unlike a tailwheel there is no steering without brakes as you get to slower speeds.
Touching the peddle, is just for the observers amusement at that point. You need brakes to steer. For a moment I felt I might get one of the first zero rated landings here at the airpark. (You get zero points for taking out a runway light, or running through the back of the hangar. It is in the rating system. Go look for yourself.) I figured that I would coast coolly onto the taxi way between the lights and let her stop her self. Well I pumped against a brake that was sucking air and had a quick lesson in hydraulics. Then it came to me to spin on the left brake 270 degrees. At that point I was just trying to miss the blue lights and thinking I should not have made a wish for the new Hartzell ScimitarPlus Prop. I stopped, sat half on the runway, half pointed up the exit for a while, and came up with some new combinations of words as they came to me. I looked around and figured that it might be a good idea to risk a short blast to move the plane into the grass off the runway before I shut it down. Another plane was calling in on the 45 to the pattern so there were a few minutes to sort it all out. Any way, I have some new crush washers and will reinstall the fixed parking brake soon.
Note:
I would still put in the parking brake. I temporarily bypassed the parking brake and went back to flying the next day. Later this week I flew off to purchase some crush washers at Spencer?s Aircraft. As I tried to park the plane the wind kept trying to blow it down wind before I could jump out and get the chalks set. I will get the parking brakes fixed ASAP.
Castering nose wheels need brakes to steer
Linear Mode
