<VV> Hydraulic park-locks, my experiences

[Roger Gault]

Yeah, these things work great - except when they don't.  There is no margin
for error.  Since hyd. fluid is incompressible, the smallest leak drops the
fluid pressure.

I grew up in a Piper aircraft dealership.  Piper used hyd. locks for parking
brakes.  I remember a couple of exciting incidents when they decided not to
hold.  One day we got a frantic call from one of our very careful customers,
a photographer who did a lot of flying into dude ranches and making
brochures for them.  Frank had landed at a small strip near Canyon Dam in
central Texas.  The strip was cut into a hill and had a sharp dropoff on
both sides at the "downhill" end.  Frank ended up at that end (don't ask
why) and needed to turn the airplane around.  He was able to get it turned
90 degrees before he ran out of runway width, set the brake, and got out to
see how he was going to get it turned the rest of the way.  At that point,
he got to watch the airplane roll backward, over the edge of the runway,
down the embankment, and into the bushes.  Bent the horizontal stabilizer
out of shape.  Some helpful construction guys got a truck and a chain and
pulled him back up on the runway just as we flew in to help.  We jumped up
and down on the stabilizer, declared it "strong enough", and Frank flew it
back to Corpus - with Dad flying close formation for a moment to look things
over in flight.  That experience left kind of a nasty taste in my mouth
about hydraulic lock parking brakes.

Roger


----- Original Message ----- 
From: <PatioMatt at aol.com>
To: <virtualvairs at corvair.org>
Sent: Sunday, September 07, 2008 8:08 PM
Subject: Re: <VV> Hydraulic park-locks, my experiences


>
>
>
> In a message dated 9/7/2008 5:31:05 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time,
> chartzel at comcast.net writes:
>
> I installed one of these items on my Powerglide dune buggy and it is
> worthless!
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Clark... what BRAND  was it?   The Micro line is an  industry standard...
> holds forklifts on ramps..loaded... just fine... all thru  lunch every
day!  gg
>
> Matt  Nall
> All Vairs!
> Web Tinyurl.com/3ds7d
> somewhere between Sea  Mountain and Coos Bay.  OR.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> **************Psssst...Have you heard the news? There's a new fashion
blog,
> plus the latest fall trends and hair styles at StyleList.com.
> (http://www.stylelist.com/trends?ncid=aolsty00050000000014)
>  _______________________________________________
> This message was sent by the VirtualVairs mailing list, all copyrights are
the property
> of the writer, please attribute properly. For help,
mailto:vv-help at corvair.org
> This list sponsored by the Corvair Society of America,
http://www.corvair.org/
> Post messages to: VirtualVairs at corvair.org
> Change your options:
http://www.vv.corvair.org/mailman/options/virtualvairs
>  _______________________________________________