Paul, the average tango nose wheel weight is 289lbs,
 Alex


 OK Alex. Thanks. That means we will need about 900 pounds
 on the shock strut. Looks like time for an aux die spring.

 Paul Lamar

 Just to be helpful...  We used a spring from a  mountain-bike rear
 suspension for our nosewheel install.

 Chris Cosman

 Nice work Chris. What damps it? :)

 Paul Lamar

Not a dang thing or friction, whichever comes first. :)
It is direct connect to the rudder pedals, sort of like Stits Flut-r-Bug.
Just finished the 40 hours of test flying and didn't notice any tendency to oscillate in the axial compression direction.  It does have a smidge of nose-wheel shimmy at higher speeds, but nothing like the old 150/152's, easily arrested by pushing forward on the stick.

Chris Cosman


A few more in primer at the start of covering.  We used the wooden mockup method you originally described here Paul.  An hour scrounging at Home Depot could usually turn up a piece of wood with no knots, that could be ripped into 3/4" square stock.  1.5 days and a can of Bondo later presto!  A full scale mockup.  With wood, loading the structure at critical points and actually observe the resulting strains allowed us to make changes to truss depths etc. was possible.

Plus you could sit in it and determine if it was actually comfortable. Try that in your CAD program.

We ended up making 3 mockups before cutting steel, all for about $40 apiece.  It only took 2.5 months.  Tried to donate the leftovers for someone to take to the Burning Man festival, but nobody wanted to come pick it up.

Chris Cosman

The Rotary Engine News Letter. Powered by Linux.
ACRE NL web site. http://www.rotaryeng.net
You Tube http://tinyurl.com/beqqxas
Copyright 1998-2013 All world wide rights reserved.