Tricycle Landing Gear: Problems and Solutions
by Jerry Kelly
Tricycle Gear, without a doubt, is the safest installation for good takeoffs and landings. There is one problem that does occur, due to improper installation or a few hard landings, and that is having the nose gear a little too long. This is very easy to trouble shoot if you place the airplane on a table then back off to observe the attitude of the fuselage.
Almost all airplanes are designed so that the fuselage should be parallel to the ground. A nose-up condition is generally very easy to spot. The fix is simple! Shorten the nose gear or lengthen the main gear until the fuselage looks parallel to the ground or, if in doubt, a little nose down won’t hurt.
You should, of course, push test on a flat smooth area to make sure it rolls straight; then push test with the radio on and use a little left then right rudder to make sure it steers properly. There may be times when you give it right, it goes left and vice versa. Two possibilities-servo direction is wrong or you have incorrect linkage between servo and nose wheel.
There are two easy-to-spot symptoms of “nose wheel too long”.
The first is when the first part of your takeoff run is nice and straight but the plane veers left or right and will not respond to rudder correction. What is happening is, one of the main wheels lifts, while the nose wheel is still in contact with the runway. If the right wheel lifts, the plane veers to the left and vice versa. You can, of course, pull up elevator but then the airplane is in the air, too slow and in a bank.
Shorten the nose wheel!
The second symptom is more embarrassing than dangerous. It occurs when making a landing that looks like it’s going to be perfect but instead of sticking to the runway the plane jumps back into the air again, and again, and again. Not what you were expecting.
Shorten the nose wheel!