Bungee

[Rubidor]

Good morning,

 

Do the bungee cords last well in the Savannah? Has anyone contemplated using the Viking made steel spring for the Zenair?

 

Thanks Robbie

 

 

[rankamateur]

Come in Hank!

 

 

[rankamateur]

Have any of the 200 buyers of the steel bungee ever weighed the new Viking bungee and compared the weight with the original Zenith bungee?If so, what are the weights?

Hank is just beginning his Savannah S now so it will be interesting to see which way he goes, he has been following this development very closely for years. I have not considered this upgrade for two reasons. Firstly I have an Airmaster constant speed prop which adds a fair bit of weight in front of the nose leg already. I have also spent weeks working at Aerokits over several years, I would be wealthy if I had a hundred dollars for every time Reg has said "if you keep adding weight, it will never get off the ground". If the bungee was a total disaster there wouldn't be thousands of aircraft around the world still using them. They are relatively cheap, light and durable, so perfectly suited to affordable ultra light aircraft.

 

 

[eightyknots]

Come in Hank!

From the United States, one opinion was that the Viking steel spring bungee "adds nearly 3 lbs" (1.36 kg).

So, I am guessing the "nearly" implies an added weight of around 1.2 kg. If so, it will increase the total Savannah weight by 0.4%.

 

 

[eightyknots]

Good morning,

Do the bungee cords last well in the Savannah? Has anyone contemplated using the Viking made steel spring for the Zenair?

 

Thanks Robbie

Did you stick with the bungee, or go with the Viking spring? FYI: the Viking dealer is in your neck of the woods.

 

 

[Rubidor]

Hi Hank,

 

‘I did a heap of homework around this mod for bungee replacement but haven’t done it, none of the guys round here have had any issues that I’m aware of.

 

fuse off to painters next week so I’m nearly at the 95% done and 95% to go stage.

 

cheers

 

robbie 

 

 

[eightyknots]

Hi Hank,

 

‘I did a heap of homework around this mod for bungee replacement but haven’t done it, none of the guys round here have had any issues that I’m aware of.

 

fuse off to painters next week so I’m nearly at the 95% done and 95% to go stage.

 

cheers

 

robbie 

 

Hi Robbie,

 

Is your Savannah flying now?

 

 

[Marty_d]

Zenith have a new system which is getting good feedback.  I'm doing this myself with a home-made variant (they haven't produced a kit for the 701 yet).

 

 

 

 

http://www.zenith.aero/profiles/blogs/nosegear-shock-suspension

 

 

[cherk]

also of note the bungees are now not made with talc as the lubricant during manufacture which apparently 

 

means they maybe needing earlier replacement........yearly .....from frictional wear.

 

 

[eightyknots]

On 06/10/2019 at 4:28 PM, Marty_d said:

 

Zenith have a new system which is getting good feedback.  I'm doing this myself with a home-made variant (they haven't produced a kit for the 701 yet).

 

Hi Marty,

 

This is an interesting development.

 

Where are you sourcing the parts with your home made variant? Did you get plans for this arrangement from somewhere?

 

 

[Marty_d]

No - there's a general layout/parts paper which shows enough to work out the rough sizes, and someone told me the rubber pucks are around 20mm thick.

 

I put it together today and it seems very stiff to me - perhaps the rubber they use in the kit is a bit spongier, I don't know.  Still, I'm not really going to be able to tell until I get some weight on the nose.

 

 

[Blueadventures]

Marty  the donut discs in the Nynja nose wheel suspension are hard also; but work well. You can see then in the build manual.