W

Wally

Active Member
What are the thoughts of builder/pilots regarding the use of the wooden stiffeners? I have them ready to install however, a friend who is ready to send his RV-9A to the paint shop had some difficulty installing the gear fairings after intalling the stiffeners. He called Van's and they seemed surprised that he had installed them! Even though they are in the plans.

Appreciate all comments before I leap!

Regards,

Wally Hunt
VAF #476
 
Yes and no...

.....Wally. It's your call...some guys fly the airplane without them and if there's no shimmy, like ours, they don't bother. We have over 300 hours on our -6A and the only time a wheel shimmied was when the tire was about worn out and out of round. I doubt if stiffeners would have helped anyway.

Regards,
 
With or without you...

I flew my -4 for 8 years with stiffeners and 5 without. If you run tire pressure above 30 psi, you will get shimmy without "the wood". With wood you can run higher pressure. 90% of my takeoffs and landings were off grass so I didn't care.
Consider this, when you stiffen the gear leg over it's length, you put more torsion on the attach point instead of spreading the load over the entire leg. An engineer showed me this and I left the stiffeners off when I went to a dynafocal mount and bigger engine. Your call...

Rob Ray
HR2
 
WOOD GEAR LEG STIFFENSERS

Thanks Pierre and Rob,

I think I'll fly without them and see how things go. I will be operating off of a grass strip as my home field. 1C8.

Happy Flying Safely,

Wally
 
Wally,

I'm not sure but the need for the stiffeners might have more to do with the older kits that required the builder to line up the wheels and drill the bolt holes. If you were off just a little bit, you would get wheel shimmy.

My -9 does not have them and I've never felt like there was a need to install them.

This is something you can add later, should you feel the need.
 
Shimmy

I have 400hrs on my RV-4 (short legs) without the stiffeners, and its been OK. If I taxi too fast on pavement I may get an oscillation.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.