Make sure to check your nose gear during preflight...

[Mark89114]

Can someone post some pics of what we should be looking for?

[gsxrpilot]

It's super simple. Turn your nose wheel with a tow bar, all the way to the stop. No get down on your knees by the front wheel and feel where the bars of the linkage touch prohibiting the wheel from turning any further. Next time, you're checking for dents in those tubes/bars where they meet indicating someone force the turn.

[Rookie]

Under the vintage mooney area (just happened to me) there are a few different photos of what happened to mine from an FBO. But I have to say they did the rite thing and paid for the repair.

[bradp]

After a few times of renting cars where some idiot tried to assign damage to me that was clearly marked during pickup, I started the habit of taking pictures on my phone at pickup and dropoff.  I started doing the same thing with my nose truss at new / unknown FBOs.  I also put down in writing that the plane is not to be moved without contacting me first.  A couple of FBOs I skip the front door entirely and head directly for wherever I won't be towed.  That does the trick. 

[MyNameIsNobody]

On 7/14/2018 at 8:44 PM, Mark89114 said:

Can someone post some pics of what we should be looking for?

Is somebody used to having people do things for them?  Too funny.

[FloridaMan]

I've been wanting to take a photo of slightly to badly damaged nose trusses and make a flyer to hang off the prop "Don't make a $3,000 mistake. Inspect and understand the turning limits of Mooneys" and include a bunch of photos that show damaged nose trusses and where to inspect. 

If yours has the tab stops (circled) those will help to prevent tube damage, but can still be broken off as one was in the original poster's case. 

 

They're there to prevent the damage to where the arrow is pointing, shown here, which you can feel for with your finger:

[0TreeLemur]

On 5/28/2015 at 10:27 AM, anthonydesmet said:

Just a thought....how about a removable flag/placard (similar to pitot tube flag and intake plug flags) that slides in the mechanical tow hole and says something like "warning, when towing keep nose wheel between red marks".  And has to be removed by the line crew prior to connecting to a manual tow bar?  

The prior owner of my C left me a little flag with velcro straps that says "DO NOT TOW".  I strap it around the nose gear.