a dumb question

D

dennyleeb

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Is it safe on your plane (firewall, other) to tow or push with a towbar. Is a 182 designed to take the pressure of pushing or towing from the points on front wheel alone? We have a slight incline to get in our hanger and the guys are always gentle but it has to be a decent amount of pressure.
 
Shouldn't be a problem as long as the tow bar firmly seats on the lugs on the fork. Some aircraft have nosewheel lateral turning limits that have to be complied with but I don't recall there being any for the Cessnas.
 
dennyleeb said:
Is it safe on your plane (firewall, other) to tow or push with a towbar. Is a 182 designed to take the pressure of pushing or towing from the points on front wheel alone? We have a slight incline to get in our hanger and the guys are always gentle but it has to be a decent amount of pressure.
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The nose wheel takes a lot more pressure than that during landings ;)
 
denverpilot said:
Cessna provides a towbar with new aircraft...
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Yeah but it is not really a push bar it is used for direction only.(well you can pull with it but not really push) You wind up pushing on the prop if by yourself or struts if help.
 
I have followed several av boards for at least 10 years and do not recall even one bad news report about how an airplane was damaged from normal and proper use of a towbar on the nosewheel. Nor from talking to folks around the airport.
Perhaps others could add their experiences and the pooled result would have some use to you.
 
dennyleeb said:
Yeah but it is not really a push bar it is used for direction only.(well you can pull with it but not really push) You wind up pushing on the prop if by yourself or struts if help.
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When you hook a tug up to it the pushing force is all on the nosewheel. Like others have said, I've never heard of a airplane being damaged by towing from the nosewheel as long as you don't go past the turn limits (if there are any). Also, some airplanes have scissors which need to be disconnected before towing. That would not apply to a 182, though.
 
The question wasn't dumb, just my joke about the answer being in the POH apparently.
 
Only thing i would be concerned about is having the towbar snap out of the pegs on the nosewheel... a towbar that is a little too loose will do that quite easily (based on experience!).

Just to be sure, you can put some force on the base of the prop (right where the blades meet the spinner, but not the spinner itself), and have someone else push on the strut.

:goofy:
 
We tow 172s and 182s by the nosewheel, with a powerful little tractor, sometimes through a few inches of snow and uphill. The nosegear can take it. HOWEVER: You can damage stuff by slamming the tractor into the towbar (or vice versa) which is why my towing setup has rubber dampers built into it. You can also oversteer the nosewheel and break the stop collar. Never force the steering with the towbar. If it won't turn any further with normal hand pressure, stop turning it. Get someone to hold the towbar while you get down under that thing and have a look at what's happening when the helper turns the nosewheel; you'll see the stop collar and lugs. And you might notice how lightly built the torque links are ("scissors") and understand that you can break those, too, by forcing the steering.

Using a hand towbar and pulling or pushing the airplane with that towbar, by hand, will never break anything. Push or pull on the propeller blade right up close to the spinner. NEVER push on the spinner or cowling. Those things are designed to deal with strong winds and to look pretty, not to take airplane-moving forces. And they break easily and cost lots of money.

Never push down on the stabilizer to raise the nosewheel to turn the airplane, either. Use the towbar. The 172, especially, will suffer cracked forward stab spars (and crushed stab nose ribs) if people do that. Cessna has a 15-year-old (at least) service bulletin on it, but I still see folks doing it and when we refurbish an older airplane we sometimes see cracked spars.

Most of the airplane is designed to deal with that strong wind I mentioned earlier. The landing gear is designed to deal with clumsy pilots slamming the airplane onto some very hard pavement. It is much stronger than the rest of the airplane.


Dan
 
Yeah we use to a tow bar to move the plane on the ground. 42 has a free flowing nose gear (just like every other Diamond) so I can turn it on the spot.
 
Dan Thomas said:
We tow 172s and 182s by the nosewheel, with a powerful little tractor, sometimes through a few inches of snow and uphill. The nosegear can take it. HOWEVER: You can damage stuff by slamming the tractor into the towbar (or vice versa) which is why my towing setup has rubber dampers built into it. You can also oversteer the nosewheel and break the stop collar. Never force the steering with the towbar. If it won't turn any further with normal hand pressure, stop turning it. Get someone to hold the towbar while you get down under that thing and have a look at what's happening when the helper turns the nosewheel; you'll see the stop collar and lugs. And you might notice how lightly built the torque links are ("scissors") and understand that you can break those, too, by forcing the steering.
Click to expand...

I prefer to put a short length of line around the tailwheel to move an airplane - that way you avoid all the above problems.
 
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