Fairchild Club Forum

'Just got back from a trip to AAA in IA with the 24. Thought the T/W
was acting funny. I thoroughly O/H'd this unit a couple years ago and
never had a moments notice of trouble till the last five or six
landings. Was tying tail down and noticed tailwheel flopped around at
the drag link. Found one of the "Alemite" shoulder bolts missing and
the other working it's way out. The tail of safety wire was still
intact so there must have been sufficient torsional loads on the bolt
to break safety wire. Rigged a bolt to get home with thanks to the
AAA gang. We will fab a new one and no harm done, however it could've
been catastrophic had the other bolt departed! They were safety wired
with .032 would suggest .06. And please when doing you're walk around
glance at the link and count 2 bolts.'

'Hy everybody,

Just to add a little something to give you the creeps, and to say that it is
a very good thing to add a specific "tailwheel" item in your
pre-flight-checklist:

Do check the welding needed to hold the fork on the plane frame.

It already happend on the F-AZCI F24 to need a re-weld operation (to be done
by a specialist, if you want to repare without taking of the fabric of your
plane).

In fact a very bad brass-collar (the two parts collar used as vertical
rotation axis), totally overworn allowed a disastrous play, and created a
very strong shimmy during rolling phases.
This kind of very hard shocks and vibrations created a visible crack just in
front of the fork (in front of the pattern on which you are tightening the
bolt to hold the fork on the structure).

To avoid such problems, I decided to draw a new collar with simple shapes
but better efficiency; I hope to put the blue prints in some weeks on the
brand new website, that the president of our association is building
nowadays:
http://j.courtot.free.fr
(you can have a look on it, but it is freshly built! take care to the
paint...it is not dry yet!!)

So, the best I could say for F24 owners who want to keep their authentic
tailwheel: it is possible, but do not allow any play or shimmy to appear on
it!!(that's why I am going to change the ballbearing in the coming weeks!)

And about safety wire, just check when you put it where it is and what parts
could touch, or cut it...do not miss that (most of the time) when you are
working on your plane's tailwheel the wheel and shockabsorber is not
compressed!!
So any bad position could lead to unproper working conditions for
safetywire!

And after a nice pre-flight!
Enjoy your flight!

Airy-H. MILLET

Nostalg'Air of Eure & Loir association
F24 F-AZCI

http://j.courtot.free.fr

>From: "ranger440c5"
>Reply-To: fairchildclub@yahoogroups.com
>To: fairchildclub@yahoogroups.com
>Subject: [fairchildclub] Safety Check
>Date: Wed, 04 Sep 2002 01:36:04 -0000
>
>Just got back from a trip to AAA in IA with the 24. Thought the T/W
>was acting funny. I thoroughly O/H'd this unit a couple years ago and
>never had a moments notice of trouble till the last five or six
>landings. Was tying tail down and noticed tailwheel flopped around at
>the drag link. Found one of the "Alemite" shoulder bolts missing and
>the other working it's way out. The tail of safety wire was still
>intact so there must have been sufficient torsional loads on the bolt
>to break safety wire. Rigged a bolt to get home with thanks to the
>AAA gang. We will fab a new one and no harm done, however it could've
>been catastrophic had the other bolt departed! They were safety wired
>with .032 would suggest .06. And please when doing you're walk around
>glance at the link and count 2 bolts.
>

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