Reversing 601xl landing gear leaf

[Thruster87]

I asked the question from Zenith as to the pros and cons of reversing the u/c leaf .Recieved the following reply; Moving the main wheels forward will make the aircraft more pron to falling on its tail when using the cabin access step to climb on the wing. The reason you may want to move the main wheels as far as possible and (within reason so you can still use the step) is to reduce the weight on the nose wheel. Less weight on the nose wheel shorter take off distance. Cheers T87

 

 

[Thruster87]

Came across another reason The pros and cons were:

 

With a nose heavy plane and the flat side rearward, there is a tendency of the nosewheel to come down hard after the mains touchdown. The result for some has been that the nose bungee bounces the nose back high enough to fly again due to the high AOA when the nose come up.

 

Vice versa, with the flat side of the main gear forward, if two heavyweight folk step on the entry steps at the same time, they may overcome the nose weight and cause the plane to sit on its tail end tie down.

 

The summary is that it depends on your preference's and the final weight distribution of your plane. Fortunately, someone noted that if you have a bit of extra slack in your brake lines and don't mind the refitting work on wheel pants brackets, the gear can be changed later if you want to do so.

 

With the flat side aft, the main gear are a few inches farther behind the CG. This gives them a longer lever arm and makes it a bit harder to rotate on take off and gives a tendency to drop the nose gear abruptly on landing. This also puts a bit more weight on the nose gear.� Putting the flat side forward will reduce these tendencies. It has been stated that putting the flat side forward will make it easier to drop the tail on the ground when climbing into the plane by way of the rear step. According to my calculations, even with the plane loaded for gross weight and most aft CG, climbing out of the plane by the rear step will not put the tail on the ground. If both try to climb out at once, that may be a different story but that can easily be avoided.

 

My gear legs have the flat face rearward because that was the way the plans showed it at the time. I have to ease the back pressure on the stick just after liftoff to avoid over-rotating and have to apply increased back pressure on touchdown to keep the nosewheel from dropping abruptly. This is not a real big deal and I've gotten used to this behavior. I never considered it dangerous, just a bit different than the planes I used to fly. If I were building it today, I would reverse the gear legs. Someday when I find the time, I will probably reverse my gear legs to improve the handling a bit. It's not a high priority with me though.