13-Nose/Nose gear
Chapter 13 Nose/Nose gear
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This chapter has some suggestions on balancing the rudder pedals. There is a hinged door for the front nose wheel and a twin "fin" bumper pad with a heated pitot tube. I read today about John Slade's failure of his front landing gear upon landing. It sounds like a nose heavy landing. He reported the shearing of the top bolts that connect the worm drive cylinder to the rectangular bracket that is attached to NG-30. When those two bolts sheared off, then the cylinder shot aft and moved the manual lift rod into the cabin about eight inches. He had his manual lift rod exiting much lower than this install and this injured his hand that was on the throttle. I cannot see any modification that will improve the current design of NG-30 for that situation. The only precaution is to exit the manual lift rod at an upward angle to avoid the possible injury and of course try not to ever land nose heavy. The first picture is different from the plans. I glassed the bottom of the fuselage and then went to the rudder pedal install. The two very important things that I wanted to get right were evenness of the pressure feel of the left and right and no "play" in the movement. In some other pics you will still see a bumper/light "thing" that has been removed. After I placed the nose light in, I installed four landing lights in the strakes and I also installed a heated pitot tube. These changes made the bumper/light idea look like a bad idea, or more like a wart on the nose of the plane. I noticed that there are no after pics. I will post those pics soon, but currently, I am doing chapter 25 work on the bottom of the fuselage. Wayne Hicks's site has a great video of the doors in action. They work great. Just remember to slant the doors to add wind deflection to keep them open better for the retraction mode.
For each contour line, I pushed a metal ruler down to the finish depth and then started contouring. I wanted to not have a reaming out of the rudder holes in NG-30 so I added another 15 ply BID hardpoint on both NG-30's. After glassing, then I bolted the two NG-30"s together and drilled all the holes including the rudder tubing holes. Next, I trial fitted everything with temporary bolts. I verified to the plans. The tip of the nose of my plane is extended to the black line on the edge of the plans page shown. In the last picture, the NG-30 assembly is attached to F-22. I used a board down the centerline of the fuselage to line the nose up as centered. I did not keep the ballast area. I cut that area out for the nose landing light and added a heated pitot tube for IFR flights.
04-30-2010
The "play" in the movement comes from poor drilling technique for the bolts. The inner and outer tubes must remain locked in position as you drill through the opposite side, so all four holes line up and the bolt barely fits through.
The rudder pedal tubes do not have the same pivot point through NG-30 so you have to move the "footprint" of the brake cylinders to a staggered position by the same distance. I used some bulkhead hardpoint scrap to set the outboard rotation points. The first two pictures show the attachment. I used an alan bolt to more easily uninstall the rudder tubing, when and if that is needed. I placed a Tee nut on the outer side of the hard point. It would be easier to use a Tee nut with prongs. I floxed in the Tee nut ( with wax on the end to allow the bolt to tighten). Doing it this way let me check for exact alignment from one side of the rudder assembly to the other and this allowed another 1/2 inch of room between the rudder pedals (since this moves the rotation point outboard). Note: the more outboard rotation point made it necessary to make a little more of a depression in the interior of the fuselage side wall where the forward side of the "T" moves. It did not cause any problem.
I made a landing gear template to confirm before I cut off the Featherlite strut. I also wanted to prepare for the wheel cover design. There is a gap between the plans wheel cover and the IP, there is a gap. If you bridge that gap and make the nose wheel cover more rigid, then the centerline reinforcement of the nose is improved. If I mess up a little on a flare, then this will help. The next to the last picture shows, the ease of assembly with the open area. The last pic is with the sides added. I carved out an additional 1/2 inch where the rudder pedal "T" came close to the sides. The brackets for the return springs for the rudders are installed on the side of the NG-30"s.
This series of pictures are all about making a smooth access door that also strengthens the nose topside. The third picture is the key. I make a template to show where the top skin would be. The door hinge and support where suspended parallel to that . I placed the top foam with four holes drilled through for showing the corners of the hinge support. I contoured the foam and marked the outline for the future door and glassed the exterior. Then, I used a dremel disk and cut through the exterior skin on the marked line. Note: I used elevator bolts to attach the hinges (from CG Parts) to the NG-30 but clickbonds (from Infinity) would have done well. The depression for the access to install the elevator lift tab bolts is only started in the third picture. I majorly widened it out to have plenty of room for a socket wrench.
Blue foam and filling in the cracks with stiff micro do not go together, so I used the painter's masking tape to bridge the gaps. It worked very well. I have recently applied micro in chapter 25 and there were very little contour issues. In the first pic, you can see the four holes that mark the outline of the support on the inner side. In the third picture, the door has just been cut out. I trimmed back the blue foam on the interior and glassed to the sides and I took the "lid" off and glassed the interior surface. I will probably come back in and thin out an area on the inner surface of the lid, where the GPS antennae is to be mounted. Adding the lips for the lid (door) are tricky, but it ended up flush. The skin on the top of the door and the sides and front of the fuselage are going to have a perfect match with this technique.
Pic #1: The heated pitot tube is only available for a LE mounting from Dynon.
The fittings for the 3/16th tubing are placed before the install. I ran 3/16th inch tubings from aft of the IP to the co-pilot strake forward baggage area for the ADAHRS module (box for input of airspeed and static, ect.). That location has less interference for the module and it frees up some forward of the IP space. I know that the pitot is off center, but this allows for replacement when needed.
Pic #2: The second picture shows the 1/4 inch thick glass hardpoints that are floxed in with some cross support to the sides and bottom of the NG-30.
Pic #3: The lateral forces need to be countered with cross supports between the two hard point bumpers. I used some 1/8th inch thick scraps. I put a small square of glassed foam between the two pieces as a spacer and floxed them in. Later, I took some cutting board material and cut it to the shape of the fin bumpers, and drilled holes through it and then flared the holes for flox to lock that piece to the hardpoint. Flox does not bond to this material. It only adapts to it. You need this sandwich combination for the abuse that this will take.
Pic #4: The front view of the finished work. The cut line for the forward end of the LG was marked on the side of the fuselage to preserve that position during the finish work (see blue color).
Pic #5: Side view.
Pic #6: The panel area was covered with masking tape like for the tire door with the wheel pants. I also cut a strip of plastic and taped it on the aft portion of the LG cover and draped it over the area that was outlined with masking tape and marked the outline on the plastic. I folded the plastic back and then glassed the area with 2 ply BID and then finished with micro. I used a Dremel disk to cut through the 2 ply BID, but I did not try to go deeper than the masking tape. You will need to add a stop at the forward two corners of the panel opening. The panel has one piece of 6 ply scrap floxed on the aft end that articulates under the fuselage skin and two pieces of scrap floxed on the sides of the cutout. This makes the panel articulate into place and then one 6-32 Tee nut is used to secure the panel. You may need to bond a second layer of scrap on the side lips to give the correct tension of this and the right level to the panel. If you are reading this section for the panels to cover the bolt holes on the wings, then mark your outline to not cut the reinforcement fibers but with straight lines that the dremel can cut out, and you can use the same technique there.
