For years I have been annoyed with occasionally severe shimmy on landing my RV-6 on tarmac runways. I keep my tire pressure at 24 psi (unchanging with Airstop tubes), it is very sensitive to the pressure. If I remove the spats there is no shimmy. It seems to be a resonance in the leg spring, reducing the mass eliminates this.
Once after a severe shimmy on landing at an unfamiliar airfield, which I thought might indicate some undercarriage problem, I spent hours fruitlessly examining the aircraft. Later I discovered that a few lines of transverse bars had been painted on the runway for a previous spot landing competition, these lines seem to have excited the leg spring into resonance.
Now as an experiment I'm fitting some pine stiffeners from Vince Frazier.
I have attached the wood with multiple strong (stated to be 175 lbs) cable ties set in grooves, so that (i) they can easily be removed if unsuccessful and (ii) there is nowhere for moisture to get trapped against the metal leg. I've checked this out with multiple fast taxi runs and a couple of landings on a rather bumpy grass runway. Next test will be with spats, on a concrete runway.
I wondered whether there was some reason why - as far as I can see - no-one else here mentions using cable ties for this purpose .....?
Once after a severe shimmy on landing at an unfamiliar airfield, which I thought might indicate some undercarriage problem, I spent hours fruitlessly examining the aircraft. Later I discovered that a few lines of transverse bars had been painted on the runway for a previous spot landing competition, these lines seem to have excited the leg spring into resonance.
Now as an experiment I'm fitting some pine stiffeners from Vince Frazier.
I have attached the wood with multiple strong (stated to be 175 lbs) cable ties set in grooves, so that (i) they can easily be removed if unsuccessful and (ii) there is nowhere for moisture to get trapped against the metal leg. I've checked this out with multiple fast taxi runs and a couple of landings on a rather bumpy grass runway. Next test will be with spats, on a concrete runway.
I wondered whether there was some reason why - as far as I can see - no-one else here mentions using cable ties for this purpose .....?