Anti Splat Aero Product

[Grumpy-Hodge]

Anyone having installed this product on their aircraft have a pirep? Still a little on the fence on whether to nose drag or tail drag the RV9. I would like to have a little more confidence in grass strip operations which is why I have been leaning towards the taildragger config. The Anti Splat Aero product seems to significantly reduce the potential for Nose Gear issues and especially issues associated with a nose gear failure.

Thanks all.

[pa38112]

I have installed the nose job and the lip skid. I fly a 6A off of a grass strip. I can't say if these products have kept me up-right, but they don't hurt any. They were easy to install, and I am glad I have them.
I chose to install the Matco axel instead of getting Allan's bearing upgrade for cost, but also because it seems to be a better fix for the flexing axel issue.
With those three upgrades I do not lose any sleep letting my son fly our 6A off of grass.

[Grumpy-Hodge]

Thanks for the info.

[RickWoodall]

I have it, again dont know if it saved my plane yet but cant hurt. I did land on a grass strip that the owner said was great when I asked permission (WAY UP NORTH). After tiedown, I commented on how rough it was and he showed me where, the week before, another plane, A CUB, had a prop strike when bouncing. NICE. It was horrible, will never take an owners word for it again, will ensure PILOTS in similar planes tell me the real story.

Anyway, I strongly suggest it....think its the smartest thing yet to at least lower the odds.

[cptbuzz]

Go with the taildragger and you won't have to worry about them at all. Easy to fly, easy to land, tracks straight. Van's makes a very nice taildragger.

Sorry, not a real big fan of the nose draggers in the RV series.

Originally Posted by Grumpy-Hodge

Anyone having installed this product on their aircraft have a pirep? Still a little on the fence on whether to nose drag or tail drag the RV9. I would like to have a little more confidence in grass strip operations which is why I have been leaning towards the taildragger config. The Anti Splat Aero product seems to significantly reduce the potential for Nose Gear issues and especially issues associated with a nose gear failure.

Thanks all.

[rvator4twa]

I learned to fly a Luscombe 8A 6 years ago while working on my 12 year to complete RV-6A QB, and had I known I would have gone the tail dragger route. I love the Luscombe and my Subaru powered 6A but from an beauty point of view, the tail draggers win in my opinion. I am about to order the aint-splat for my 6A because I want every margin of safety and I have a NW vibration on landing roll out.
Dues paid Dec. 2012

[RetiredRacer]

You do not plan to for the incidence's that test the product but when you are flying into grass and dirt fields (and some times sealed), something unexpected can happen.

The wife did her training in our 9a and the instructor tells me she has given the nosewheel a good workout (thanks antisplat).

On late rollout on a bush strip I had to swerve to avoid hitting a Kangaroo hiding in the late afternoon shadows and went through some large off-field bumps (thanks Anti-splat).

Landed on a friends private field to discover that a storm had been through the area the night before and again on late roll out (as we always hold the front wheel off as long as possible), when the front wheel came down it sank into the mud and the wheel pant became a ski (thanks Anti-splat).

Our CFI's home, private bush strip, is only 1000' long (he only does short field training on here). You drag it in over the tree's and after touch down hold the front wheel off for a short time, before lowering it down and on the brakes to stop by his hangar (800')

On our recent 2600 nm trip from SE QLD (Australia) to W'bool (Vic) and back through the red centre. After landing on W'bools grass cross strip and again on late rollout hit, what I found out later to be a 3" higher sealed main runway, resulting in a wheel stand that did slight damage to the rudder bottom fairing. There was no damage to the front leg from this impact with the sealed runway, thanks again to "Antisplat".

As Larry would say, that's my 2 cents

[RVbySDI]

I have a 9A that has always flown off of our 3K' grass strip. I have just completed my condition inspection for this year. I have had the nose gear on for 1.5 years now. When I installed it I wrapped some black electrical tape around the leg gear underneath the ends of the brace where the Anti-Splat brace would come into contact with the gear leg if there was ever any flexing enough to have the bracket do its work. There is not even a scratch on the tape anywhere, top or bottom. Even though I believe the nose gear bracket is good insurance it appears that my nose gear has not flexed enough to require it to be engaged yet.

As for landing on grass, the 9A does just fine. Of course I am concerned about grass strips that I am not familiar with but I am not concerned about landing on any descent grass runways that I familiarize myself with prior to landing. Treat every landing (grass, asphalt, concrete; it doesn't matter the type of surface) as a soft field landing and a nose gear RV will do fine.

[jjconstant]

I believe that the 6A that had the off field landing in the soccer field in Utah had the anti splat nose job and he reported no nose gear damage. Exactly one of the scenarios it was designed for. The problem is that we'll never know if the gear would have failed without it unless there are some kind of witness marks on the gear.

[Captain Avgas]

Originally Posted by RetiredRacer

On our recent 2600 nm trip from SE QLD (Australia) to W'bool (Vic) and back through the red centre. After landing on W'bools grass cross strip and again on late rollout hit, what I found out later to be a 3" higher sealed main runway, resulting in a wheel stand that did slight damage to the rudder bottom fairing. There was no damage to the front leg from this impact with the sealed runway, thanks again to "Antisplat".

The Anti Splat device does not provide any bracing action during normal operations of the nose gear. It is designed to only provide bracing when the gear leg is at, or close to, yield.

Therefore the cups of the Anti Splat brace should only come into contact with the gear leg when the leg is close to buckling (ie. at the point of impending gear leg failure when there is an extreme amount of bending in the leg).

No doubt when those cups come into contact with the powdercoat on the gear leg you will see marks in the powdercoat.

Therefore my question to you is: Have you actually removed your nose gear fairing to check whether the cups of the Anti-Splat have ever come into contact with your nose gear?

If there has been no contact then the Anti Splat device has never been involved in providing any bracing action on your gear leg. In those circumstances you would have been thanking Anti Splat quite a lot when their device has in fact performed no service.

Incidentally, my comments are not to be construed as either praise or critisism of the Anti-splat device. They are simply a call for technical accuracy.