SonexBuilders.net

Sonex comments on Tracy O

Yeh I read it. I'm pretty sure its just the usual old product protection statement and rant. :cry: It does however seem to be a very effective way of stopping a topic.

I do agree with Jeremy on one point he made regarding brakes. You will never brake too hard with the standard brakes and consequently flip your sonex on its back. :lol:

I dont have the Tracy Obrien gear legs but I also wouldnt be at all concerned if I did. I may be wrong but I thought Vans aircraft all used the same gear leg system as the Tracy Obrien legs. That is heat treated steel legs bolted into weldments. "No shock absorption there other than the spring steel".

Steve
Sonex 892 3300 TD 87 hrs and Great Plains brakes

sonex892 wrote:I do agree with Jeremy on one point he made regarding brakes. You will never brake too hard with the standard brakes and consequently flip your sonex on its back. :lol:

LOL, yes!
Although you're hitting the nail on the head here, somehow they are turning the concept of having more stopping power available into a purely unsafe thing to have.
I fly a Citabria now mostly, and yes, I could put it on its nose if I wanted to, I never have though :? .

rizzz wrote:

sonex892 wrote:I do agree with Jeremy on one point he made regarding brakes. You will never brake too hard with the standard brakes and consequently flip your sonex on its back. :lol:

LOL, yes!
Although you're hitting the nail on the head here, somehow they are turning the concept of having more stopping power available into a purely unsafe thing to have.
I fly a Citabria now mostly, and yes, I could put it on its nose if I wanted to, I never have though :? .

With great power, comes great responsibility.
I'm not concerned as I'm building a nose dragged. My problem will be flat spots on my tire, not my canopy.

Btw, anyone need the stock brakes? Got a set.

Hey everyone,

The guys over at Sonex are very smart and they know what they are talking about, but I think it's a little too much to say that the gear legs should "immediately be changed over to the gear system specified in the plans".

The gear legs from O'Brien are based on a design that has been used for over 30 years in many different aircraft. In my mind that is a long enough time and a big enough sample size to make an informed decision on if the design works.

Don't get me wrong, I think the titanium gear legs are a great design feature of the Sonex, I just don't like the design of the axles that bolt to them. That is why I chose to use the O'brien legs. In my opinion (for what its worth) if you do use the titanium gear legs you should use the stub axle assemblies from TO or at least modify the Sonex axles to emulate the TO design.

Just my 2 cents.

To me, the problem is "*if* Sonex is right about this. Think about where the gear attaches...in a tail dragger, you risk breaking your engine mount, which is non-trivial. If you have a nose dragger, you risk breaking the gear attach brackets or the spar tunnel angle they bolt to. This would be a MAJOR repair (as someone who has built his spar tunnel three times before getting it the way he wants it, I don't want to do that again!).

Titanium does have more flex than heat treated steel, but not being an engineer I don't know how much. So I suppose what it boils down to is whose engineering numbers you trust more, Monnetts' or O'Brien's. Tough decision for those that want those gear legs.