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highflight42x

Well Known Member
Does anyone have experience with bent RV4/3 gear legs due to hard landing? Where does the first yield point tend to be: engine mount?, fwd fuselage?, the gear legs themselves? I had a top-ten hard landing (not the worst, but notable) on my 700 hour, 2000+ landings airframe. Eyeballing the tires and wheel-pants, they might be bent upwards a little compared to before. (On the taxi back to the hanger, didn't notice any difference, but I want to measure and quantify it before I go up again.)

thanks,
 
Don't know what you mean by a "top-ten hard landing" but it probably is one you' like to forget. I've had a few.

One notable was in the Cozy MKIV, I managed to stall the canard about 2' above the runway with a big guy in the right seat. It hit so hard the gear legs spread to the point where one brake service fitting was ground off the brake housing. The gear legs did spring back to what appeared to be normal but I thought the airframe was a class 26. (military for junk) A thorough inspection revealed very little damage except for some cracked fairings and that brake service fitting. There were no cracks with the fiber glass structure anywhere.

With regard to the RV-4, I would pull the cowl and check the engine mount at the firewall. I've seen one 4 with the attach gussets broken on all four corners. Don't know how that happened but it did and the owner is blessed it was noticed before further flight.
 
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If you have the old style RV-4, the legs and the firewall seem to yield at about the same time.


If you have the newer revision, (Almost all are the newer revision) with tall legs, the legs usually yield a few inches below the engine mount.

If the firewall is bent, it is usually pretty easy to spot when you inspect it. If it is only the legs, it can be not so obvious if the damage is minor. Many people have flown lots of hours with minor bends in their legs though.
 
On my 9A

Very hard landing. I think what happens depends on how you made contact with the ground. In my case the mains hit first with the left side making first contact.
All the gear leg fairings broke to some extent. The front gear leg fairing the worse. I measured the bend in my left main at about 3/4 inch out of true.
I took the front and left gear leg to Harmon Lange (the guy that makes all of VAN's round gear legs). He check and the front was still true and the left he straitened for me. Cost about $75.

Kent
 
Bend

If there is no obvious bend the only way you will tell is to take he weight off them and check them for straightness unloaded.

Our Tailwind has suffered three bad landings in the twenty years we have had it. The first a ground loop which resulted in the left gear bending badly.

The whole gear was then replaced with RV4 legs. The second accident damage appeared to have resulted from having been stalled in really hard. Both gear legs were splayed out. The prop had struck the ground and was bent and the engine mount was cracked. Again it was repaired with the short 4 gear.

This last time was another ground loop. I am told the gear is not bent but the port engine mount collapsed allowing the left gear leg to swing under the aeroplane.

So damage could be on either the legs or the engine mount and even prop and all that entails like a shock loaded engine.

Best of luck.
 
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