Legalities of flying with a collapsed strut?

[Dan Thomas]

Freaking idiots.

No. They are marketers that know a fool is born every minute.

Airliners use nitrogen in their tires.

 

[JAWS]

The OP aircraft is a retractable Cherokee?

If you don't like it, sure fly it with a collapsed strut.

I sure wouldn't, nor would I recommend that to a customer. Piper retractables have enough issues without adding to them.

As far as legalities, the aircraft has a known mechanical problem in a critical system. Ignore it at your peril. A ferry permit would not help in this case.

I can't recall the aircraft, but I remember one that you weren't even supposed to tow with a flat strut.

Edit. I should have written "In my opinion, a ferry permit would not help in this case".

 

[denverpilot]

I just realized with my broken back...

I’ve been flying around with a collapsed strut. LOL

 

[Kritchlow]

Maybe it’s just me, but cannot fathom flying an airplane with a known problem to be legal, unless relief is provided in the MEL.
Am I out of touch here..?

 

[Silvaire]

...Am I out of touch here..?

Maybe, this is POA where it usually starts with - I know this is totally illegal and I would never do it but....

 

[jsstevens]

I used nitrogen in the race car tires.

Because the nitrogen does not get as hot as oxygenated air then expand when it gets hot, then raising the tire pressure.

Because the increasing tire pressure can throw off the suspension set up thereby slowing the car down and/or making it hard to handle through the turns.

I use nitrogen in the truck and trailer tires to keep the heat down in the tires when loaded and at highway speeds.

Heat eventually breaks down tires.

So you’re saying nitrogen expands and contracts less with heat and cold?

 

[Dan Thomas]

So you’re saying nitrogen expands and contracts less with heat and cold?

I wondered about that. The gas laws don't mention anything about different rates for different gases, AFAIK.

 

[Zeldman]

So you’re saying nitrogen expands and contracts less with heat and cold?

Nope, not me saying that. These are tricks that have been around a lot longer than before I came around.

 

[Silvaire]

Airliners use Nitrogen for a few reasons. The quantities of gas in the struts and tires is greater than just about any other vehicle and they fly in an environment that is a constant -40 to -70 degrees F with struts and tires in a static state so any amount of moisture will pool at the lowest point and freeze. The pressures used are higher than "shop air" so they need to use compressed cylinders anyway, may as well fill them with Nitrogen which also gives them a standard, controlled quality with no variances. They also used compressed Nitrogen for other tasks such as flushing pitot/static lines and purging fuel tanks.