I’m sure this has been discussed to death but I have had a recent problem that I was wondering if somebody could give me some insight on. A recent landing resulted in the nose wheel shimmy that I’ve been told and have read is normal. other than that one landing all other aspects of the flight were completely uneventful. Upon landing at my final destination I noticed the complete rear of the nosewheel pant was gone! the worse part is that the very tip of one blade on the prop was bent forward. There is also a very distinct white scuff mark on that prop blade. I am assuming the wheel shimmy whipped the wheel pant off the assembly and into the prop. anybody else have similiar problem?
03/11/03 10:42 AM
Who are you with the post below Edit Reply
I noticed that there is nothing on your profile. Are you a Jeff (bogas) trying to start some bad vibes. You do not say what type of plane And it is not on your tag. Why dont you say how many hours what kind of plane. I think these types of post should be on the members only. Just a vibe I am geting on this. Not accusing just wanting to know. Don
Kelly:
I agree with what has been posted above. However, your impression is incorrect; a nose wheel shimmy is NOT normal. It may be an indication that the nosewheel torque is too low, or it may be piloting technique.
Your prop strike is a serious issue - you should not fly the aircraft until it is repaired. You should get an opinion as to whether this prop strike requires an engine teardown inspection (I’d guess probably not, but maybe). In any case, it will be expensive.
I would immediately have the nosewheel torque checked, and if it is too low and this is a new aircraft, I would contact Cirrus in writing and ask them to pay for taking care of the problem. If the torque is normal, it was probably piloting technique and you will probably have to pay for the repairs.
Please join COPA right away - there is a huge wealth of information on this and other topics in the Member’s forum.
Tim
Kelly, Sorry to hear about the problem. In fact, I saw your plane on the ramp in Key West and the damage was ugly. My nosewheel shimmy ended when the service center found (at 70 hours) that my nosewheel was way out of balance. When that was resolved, the shimmy disappeared. I do want to emphasize the value of COPA. You have a new SR22 with the PFD. COPA will be invaluable to you. It has been the best investment in my Cirrus.
Jeffrey Cardenas
I’m new to the forum, so forgive any repetition…
I have experienced the exact same problem with my SR-22, which was delivered last week. The shimmy can be quite bad even with a very smooth landing if the flaps are not retracted ASAP and some back pressure maintained to keep weight off the nosewheel.
The initial effect of one or two roll-outs with the shimmy was a small crack in the side of the wheel pant about where the back of the tire would (did) hit the fairing. After two more landings, the back half of the fairing split completely off.
Without the back half, the nosewheel flutters in flight and drags the plane by about 5 knots. I’ve grounded the plane for now, waiting for a new fairing to be installed by my local service center.
Dear Kelly,
I know that you have had a lot of replies to your post. Many of which offer excellent advice. Just a little more information from a SR22 pilot. I have been flying since 1987 and have flown with several instructors, some good, some poor. In my opinion, your problem was an instructor who did not know enough about your plane. I had three different instructors with my Cirrus. The first did not even attempt to show me how to fly my Cirrus, which by the way is much easier to fly and land than my 182 Cessna. You need an instructor who teaches you how to fly the Cirrus by the numbers. When you touch down, you should be stalled and land on your main wheels only. The nose wheel you let down only after you have slowed down (really canÂ’t keep it up any longer). If you land at stall with nose wheel off the runway, you will have NO problems with nose wheel shimmy. You also need an instructor who is familiar with ALL your planeÂ’s instruments and can teach you to use all of them. Your instruments are useless to you if you canÂ’t use them correctly.
By the way, I had lots of problems with nose wheel shimmy on my 182 Cessna until I stopped renting it out to professional pilots, who either did not know how to land a 182 Cessna or did not care enough to land it correctly. I had to replace the nose wheel strut.
Hope this helps,
Mary Helen
N220MH
s/n 205
well my name is kelly and it is a SR22 which we took delivery on last week. not trying to “start” something. just trying to find out if this is something somebody else has experienced and if there is something we did or is it something we can prevent from happening again. I am new to this forum and I apologize for giving you a bad vibe. I will fill out the profile if that makes you feel better. I can assure you I’m not “bogus” I am really looking for some insight here.
Kelly,
Probably the main thing that induces the shimmy is landing too fast and too flat and setting the nosewheel down prematurely. As you touch down, you should be increasing back pressure to hold the nosewheel off so that you end up with the stick fully aft. I follow this practice and have never had a nosewheel shimmy in 200 hours. (All too many pilots feel that their job is done when the wheels touch the ground, and release the stick prematurely.)
That being said, there are adjustments that can be made to the nose gear to minimize the effects of shimmy. Use the “Search” function of the Forum (at the top of the page) to search for occurrences of the word “shimmy.”
You’ll find that most of the meatiest discussions are on the Members forum, which you can access once you become a COPA member. I strongly encourage you to become a member right away — at $50 a year, the information that you’ll garner from our Forums make COPA membership the cheapest and best accessory that you can get for your new Cirrus! http://www.cirruspilots.org/public/howto.htmlClick here for information on how to join.
Cheers,
Roger
Sorry about that Kelly. It is we have had these guys every so often make apost like that. That is why it is a little beter on the meembers forum. Sorry again welcome to the Cirrus group. hope you can resolve your problem easly. Don
Kelly, I’ll second Roger’s suggestion. This issue has been discussed at length on the member’s forum. Joining COPA and getting access to that forum is one of the best investments you can make towards safe flying and understanding your airplane.
Totally agree. Best $50.00 I ever spent. Also after reading advise of forum, I’ve never had shimmy.
If I can to add my experiences of low-time-low-experienced-high-performances-plane-now-happy-SR22-owner.
I took care a lot all the discussions here for to obtain more experiences (I never spend so well so low amount of money for joint COPAs benefits), and I can say that some post upset me thinking to fly soon one Cirrus because of few post like your…
Is happened later that I finally started to fly my Cirrus with a good instructor in my side (Matt McDaniels), and from the beginning to 20 plus of flight-hours, untill today (>64h in SR22), I’m been and still now I am really surprised with myself of do not experineced nothing of the bad experiences that seems I read here and that seems affected “all Cirrus” airplanes.
I found/find easy to fly, absolutely reliable/responsive as so as what you did what he (or she-the airplane) did; I never experienced bad shimmy (maybe just a sign of it few time absolutely easy to recovering), but maybe 15% of bad shimmy that I experienced on Cessna 172, Partenavia P66/64and68 or on SF260.
All this with low experience, being a “normal person/pilot”, maybe just with some good suggestion/skill that Matt McDaniel gave me from the beginning, and doing some mistake (probably little because I’m still here…) anyway sometime.
So, ok, where is the “moral”?
The human nature is to talk bad of everythings, something that I refuse to do since many time ago, liking to think and talk of the good things, and spending all my resource for try to solve the badone.
Here you will find people that speak “of some own not so good experience” of somethings, more than speak well of somethings else.
I’m sure that of over 850 (?) flying Cirrus in the sky, we can’t to label Cirrus as “with really bad shimmy attitude” for 5, 10 or 15(?) "shymmy post, because maybe there are out there (like me) 700 pilot with no shimmy at all experiences.
If this exist, try to concentrate your attention on the torque of the nose whells, tire pressure, landing technique… or something else.
Just my really 0,00002C suggestion.
In reply to:
The shimmy can be quite bad even with a very smooth landing if the flaps are not retracted ASAP and some back pressure maintained to keep weight off the nosewheel.
Sounds like the torque wasn’t adjusted correctly. How fast are you going on final? Is the airplane ready to give up flying when you put it on the ground? IOW, do you hear the stall horn bleat as you’re touching down?
In reply to:
I’ve grounded the plane for now, waiting for a new fairing to be installed by my local service center.
Stephen,
No need to wait around! Remove the front half of the fairing and start flying again! The plane flies fine without a nosewheel fairing – I flew my old SR22 that way for several months while waiting for a replacement.
-Mike
Well, I have an interesting “twist” to the shimmy problem that cracked off my nose wheel pant… (No pun intended) While replacing the fairing and setting the torque, etc., the service center discovered about 1 pint of water inside the nose wheel itself! Based on what they found, the SC is sure the water has been in there since Duluth – probably an overzealous power washer to the nosewheel assembly. Just like a washing machine with an unbalanced load, the water sloshing around was, on occasion, violently shaking the nose wheel as the plane rolled out on touchdown.
Kudos to Russell at Southwest Texas Aviation for going the extra mile to research possible causes of the shimmy rather than simply slapping on a new fairing. New bearings are on the way from CD.
This doesn’t mean I don’t have to strive for perfect landings every time…
Stephen
In reply to:
In reply to:
I’ve grounded the plane for now, waiting for a new fairing to be installed by my local service center.
Stephen,
No need to wait around! Remove the front half of the fairing and start flying again! The plane flies fine without a nosewheel fairing – I flew my old SR22 that way for several months while waiting for a replacement.
Stephen/Mike…
Seems that a design change has been made. Today I saw a new nosewheel pant (for the SR22 only) – instead of two halves, it’s essentially one piece. I don’t have a photo [:(], and that’s the best I can do to describe it.
- Mike.
[quote]
the service center discovered about 1 pint of water inside the nose wheel itself! Based on what they found, the SC is sure the water has been in there since Duluth /
[quote]
Did they have to do special mineral testing or can they tell the difference between Minnesota water and Texas water just by looking at it?
Ohhh, so you think it rains in the summer down here? All joking aside, I haven’t flown in any rain down here, nor has the plane been washed in the 10 days it has been in Texas, so we/they deduced that it must have come down from DLH in that condition.
Also, the water had been in there long enough to start the corrosion process.