Hi, I have a 10 year old Jabiru UL450 with low hours and the yellow nosewheel shock absorber self- destructed in the hanger. The machine is kept at Montpezat in the Lot-et-Garonne, France and the engineer ordered parts from Paris and replaced the crumbled yellow part with the new red equivalent.
I was just lucky that the prop is always left in the horizontal position and there was therefore no prop damage when the nosewheel collapsed. I was even more lucky that it did not happen on take-off or landing or on pre-take-off power checks as has been the case with some less fortunate fellow aviators.
It is inconceivable that Jabiru has not issued a SB to all operators despite being aware of the problem for some time.
Kind regards
Popuppete1
