In article ,
Greg Esres wrote:
The instructor, who is a big iron A&P, doesn't believe that a hard
landing could do the damage indicated. He thinks that the rod end is
a flimsy piece of metal because it doesn't really bear any load; its
job is just to press against the over-center link to make sure it
stays over center. The load of a hard landing would be borne by other
structures in the assembly and would likely show damage.

The whole point of the 'over center' part is that briefly the gear is
actually extended slighty farther than the locked position. Maybe it
was misrigged so that (on that particular landing) the rod only pushed
it to the maximum extension point (which would give you your green light)
then on landing the pushrod would have to bear the whole force as the
gear tried to collapse.

It would probably be hard to see it on jacks. There's no force pushing
against the gear to prevent it from extending (in fact gravity is probably
helping when the plane is on jacks).

--
Ben Jackson

http://www.ben.com/