Hi all,
As some of you may recall I had an incident where my port out rigger
didn't latch. I did some work on it this weekend and discovered that
the head of a castellated nut had been catching the side of the W21
outrigger plate.
If you look at the drawing on the bottom left hand corner on page 9-23
of the manual you will see that a AN4-11 drilled bolt passes through
the top of the outrigger leg OR1 attaching it to OR4. The AN4-11 bolt
is fitted with a AN310 castellated nut.
What happening was that there was enough play where the bolt goes
through the OR4 latch arm to allow OR1 to twist sideways so that the
nut catches on the side of the W21 outrigger plate.
What I did was to shorten the AN4-11 drilled bolt by 2mm and use a low
profile castellated nut, I believe that they are designated AN320 (not
certain). In addition I fitted another AN960-416L washer in the slot
of OR1 to take up the slack between it and the OR4 latch.
All seems well now, but I would encourage everyone to take a look on
the inside of there W21 outrigger plate to check for signs of
catching.
I intend to fit a micro switch to detect gear down and locked, but I
am afraid to say the the ultimate solution will be to convert my
aircraft into a conventional tail dragger. Another instance of the
outrigger not locking or the main gear over center lock failing is
more than I would want to contemplate at some remote airstrip.
Regards, Paul
|