Gear mods

[Keith]

Has anyone ever modified the gear to electric or hydraulic

[Paul Rule]

Someone in WA state started on the idea to drive the gear off of a shaft extended throught the spars (making another half moon cutout in them) to a geared down motor under the seat.  An extended shaft was about as far as they got.  Not sure if they ever picked out a motor or not. 

I would think you would want to keep the hand wheel and have some form of diaconnect from the motor for energency extending.  There would also (seems to me) need to be lockout switchs on the gear locking lever so the motor could only run "up" in the raise position and "down" in the lower position and not either in the locked position plus the up/dn limit switches... lots of switches. 

[Bill Poynter]

Check out page 7 of the Airworthiness documents for Culver N29288.  It's the FAA operating Limitations for a experimentally licensed Cadet to evaluate different propellers and an electro-mechanical retractable landing gear system.

[Keith U.]

What about the gear leg fairings that aren't factory original?  Any benefits other that cosmetic on the ramp?  Not sure if this is the right area for this discussion, but thought I would ask...

[Woody]

It's my understanding that spats were on the prototype plane but not put into production.  Some people do have them but I've been told that the gas tanks were moved from the wings and the spats were removed because of design problems ??  I think I read somewhere that spins were the problem and rather than work on design changes they just eliminated the problem with a place card. I'm sure some of you know much more about this and can fill in the blanks.

[Brett Lovett]

My understanding is:

The prototype Culver Model L had the following features which were excluded from all production LCA and LFA model aircraft: 
Landing gear doors
Fuel tanks in the wing (forward of the main spar/wing walk area).

All of the production Cadets had the following features which were not included on the Prototype Model L:
Wing slots
Sharp leading edge (later removed by a service memo)
Fuselage fuel tank

I believe Foster Lane (who did the first flight on the prototype) wrote in his book that the wing slots were added by Al Mooney in an attempt to solve a spin recovery issue just prior to certification.  I'll have to dig his book out again, but I recall there was some implication that this was done hastily without ever confirming that the wing slots were THE thing that solved the spin issue.  In my opinion, the other changes may have also been hastily done in interest of solving the spin issue (don't forget that power-off spins would have had to have been accomplished with the gear and gear doors extended because of the throttle/gear interlink) without any individual testing.

Also to avoid any confusion, the Culver Cadet hanging in the terminal building at the Port Columbus International Airport is not the prototype (s/n 101) that Foster Lane flew although it has been mistakenly identified as such.  It is s/n 100 which was apparently built as a test article and later completed and sold.  The prototype s/n 101 was destroyed in an accident.

[Paul Rule]

Sounds about right Brett.  I wonder if the guy that did the STC spun it enough to tell the difference...he took the slots off.  To me the slots seem too far outboard, not in front of much aileron.  With the forward tank, it seems to be a little nose-heavy and I bet that helped more then anything.

I just noticed yeaterday that the Columbus airplane has changed hands in the FAA registry.  I hope they don't take it down.  I go out of my way to look at it every time I am in CMH.

I have an old B&W picture of #101 the "first" Culver you mention when it crashed.  I think it lost power and on landing, slid to a stop in a ditch, jamed under a small bridge.  It got dubbed "The Culvert Cadet"...

I'll get a copy of it to Bill to post sometime.

[Bill Poynter]

Do you know if serial #101 was ever sold to the public or did the factory crash it? 

It looks like serial #458 was on it's belly a number of times while still owned by the factory.  It would be interesting to know the details of those accidents.

[Paul Rule]

#101 is long gone I think.  Never put back in the air after the "Culvert".

[Bill Poynter]

What I was getting at is, did a factory pilot crash #101?  The factory guys seemed to have crashed #458 on a regular basis.

[Paul Rule]

Yes, it was a factory mishap.  I think it was never sold.

[Brett Lovett]

Agreed.  Factory mishap and never sold.  I believe the accident was before certification was complete.  As I recall there was some type of magneto issue that caused an engine failure during a test flight.

[Bill Poynter]

I noticed a reference in one of the Cadet Airworthiness files, regarding replacing the lower landing gear sockets with a new heavier version.  Does anyone know if there’s more than one version?   

[Paul Rule]

Bill,  I assume you are talking about the 90 deg. weld-up that the axle and strut piston fit into.   I think that I have seen two styles, one a little heaver then the other, but will have to look more carefullt to remember the exact differences.  There were a lot more less then perfect landing strips in the 40's then now so they might have had more reason to reinforce then.