• The Biplane Forum is a large global active community of biplane builders, owners and pilots. From Pitts to Skybolts, to older barnstormers, all types are welcome. In addition to our active community, our content boasts exhaustive technical information which is often sought after for projects and maintenance. This information has accumulated over the 12+ years the forum has been in existence.

    The Biplane Forum is a private community. Subscriptions are only $49.99/year or $6.99/month to gain access to this great community and unmatched source of information not found anywhere else on the web. We are also a great resource for non biplane users, since many GA aircraft are built the same way (fabric and tube construction). Annual membership also comes with two BiplaneForum.com decals.



Landing gear cracks

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Joined
May 24, 2012
Messages
1,826
Reaction score
604
Location
Cameron Park, CA. (O61)
Addendum - For those of you just joining this thread, there are a lot better pictures on subsequent pages of this thread)


I've been busy fixing up a lot of stuff on the Charger. I thoroughly degreased the inside belly and discovered a couple of cracks in the landing gear weldments. What I found were symmetric (left and right gear legs)cracks. The crack is a single fracture located on the fillet weld which joins the pivot tube to the LOWER gear leg gusset. This weld is ONLY located on the horizontal section of that weld.

Based off the position of the weld and the stresses that the landing gear is subject to, it seems that the welds failed in tension from an aft force exerted upon the landing gear.

Since the only sign of cracking is on the weld itself, this will be a fairly simple repair. Phew!

I am more concerned with the reason this occurred and what I can do to prevent it from occurring again.

Thoughts?

I noticed on the gear leg (and on the plans) that the weld is only on the one side of the gussett)

Glenn

IMAG0981.jpg


IMAG0982.jpg
 
Last edited:

Latest posts

Back
Top