Fairchild Club Forum

'Does anyone know if a wing type strobe is legal to mount on top of
fuselage? Considering mounting fuselage strobes and viewing Whelen
and Aeroflash lit all fuselage application strobes are the little
jelly jar fresnel lens type. This is OK for belly as not very evident
but that thing on the back will look like a wart. Couldn't a oval
lens wing type unit be mounted on top of fuselage? It'd be less
conspicuous and angular coverage meets part 23.
On another note, there was a little article in Nov. Experimenter on
tailwheel shimmy. A pacer driver Gilbert Pierce wrote it. He stated
that according to automotive theory of wheel alignment that the pivot
axis(the oleo strut on a 24) should actually angle forward!!! This
means that the bottom should be ahead of top of strut. Now before you
say @#%!$^, I looked at a Waco and it never has shimmy (rarely use
lock). Lo and behold it angles forward. This is true Waco UPF as when
ground handling that silly little wheel always wants to turn to the
front, and its a bear to get it back around. This is in conflict with
one statement in the article but that's another story. Now I've heard
of Fairchild people extending the draglink but according to this
article that would exacerbate the situation. Food for thought.'

'On Tuesday, December 3, 2002, at 04:48 PM, ranger440c5 wrote:

> Does anyone know if a wing type strobe is legal to mount on top of
> fuselage? Considering mounting fuselage strobes and viewing Whelen
> and Aeroflash lit all fuselage application strobes are the little
> jelly jar fresnel lens type. This is OK for belly as not very evident
> but that thing on the back will look like a wart. Couldn't a oval
> lens wing type unit be mounted on top of fuselage?

Take a look at the Whelen 70821 series. I mounted a red one on top of
the fuselage as a ground anticollision light; its quite small. My A&P
liked it so much he installed one on his Bonanza.

I havent read the article about tailwheel shimmy, but I dont think its
quite that simple. The angle of the strut does affect the caster and
trail of the tailwheel, but so do other aspects of the geometry. Other
important considerations are the rotational inertia of the assembly,
damping, and free play in the attachments.

:djm
:NC81323'

'Face it. Fairchilds shimmy......

Gene


I do have the Waco tailwheel drawings. Maybe we should remake them to fit the Fairchild and get an STC. They never shimmy....

Of course everyone could buy Waco cabins........


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]'

'Dan,
This looks to be a swell unit, however, educate me. What does it mean
by "ground recognition"? Does this still qualify as an airborn anti-
collision? I've seen this "ground recognition" term but unsure what
it means. Thanks

> Take a look at the Whelen 70821 series. I mounted a red one on top

of

> the fuselage as a ground anticollision light; its quite small. My

A&P

> liked it so much he installed one on his Bonanza.
>
> :djm
> :NC81323

'