Paul Jackson
PATRON
MN
I had new skis installed over the holiday break and took them out for the first go on snow today. I am an admitted newbie on skis with limited experience, but I really thought they got up and on top very nicely and take offs and landings went very well. I have been very happy with them in cruise and all regimes of flight. I did a quick install and removal in the shop before leaving and they were on and off in minutes with my biggest slow down being the big cotter key removal (user error I am sure). I have known Steve the owner of Trick for a few years now and he sponsors my ski fly-in so I got some really good service on the install, but I am am sure he would jump through hoops for his customers.
We hung the plane with the float rings and removed the wheels to install the ski axles. Note that you have to go to 850-6 tires and they have to be inflated to 55 PSI for the install.
We found out during the install we could not use AN hardware on the axle bolts and Steve supplied me with the NAS hardware replacements. Axle install was pretty straight forward.
We had some issues with the attach brackets which mount on the gear legs. Cessna apparently had a bit of variance in gear width from year to year and Steve had to get us some wider back plates to make it work. We also had to work some of the mounting holes and my mechanic really spent some extra time "forming" them to match the fuselage lines and conform bracket to gear leg. These with stay with the gear off season so the fit and finish was worth it.
Next was rigging them. My guys played with this for a bit and they ended up not having to use shims.
The gear really flattens out under load and they set up very nicely. Rigging wires turned out clean looking and it is a very nice looking install in the end.
Here is finished product. I will have the 180 at the Ski Plane fly in at McGregor on the 26th.
We hung the plane with the float rings and removed the wheels to install the ski axles. Note that you have to go to 850-6 tires and they have to be inflated to 55 PSI for the install.
We found out during the install we could not use AN hardware on the axle bolts and Steve supplied me with the NAS hardware replacements. Axle install was pretty straight forward.
We had some issues with the attach brackets which mount on the gear legs. Cessna apparently had a bit of variance in gear width from year to year and Steve had to get us some wider back plates to make it work. We also had to work some of the mounting holes and my mechanic really spent some extra time "forming" them to match the fuselage lines and conform bracket to gear leg. These with stay with the gear off season so the fit and finish was worth it.
Next was rigging them. My guys played with this for a bit and they ended up not having to use shims.
The gear really flattens out under load and they set up very nicely. Rigging wires turned out clean looking and it is a very nice looking install in the end.
Here is finished product. I will have the 180 at the Ski Plane fly in at McGregor on the 26th.