Warbird Information Exchange

Just one little question. Does the nose gear on the 320 normally rotate 90deg on retraction? I understant the need for this on MLG(P36/P40, F4U, F6F, B52, C5 etc.), but I've never seen that on nose/tail wheels before? Any one have a clue?

UA had a A-320 that did the same thing

Airbus Nose Gear Had Similar Problems Before JetBlue Mishap
The Wall Street Journal 09/23/05
author: Andy Pasztor
(Copyright (c) 2005, Dow Jones & Company, Inc.)

Aviation-safety records reveal at least nine earlier incidents of nose gears on Airbus jetliners jamming in a sideways position, similar to the problem that forced a JetBlue Airways A320 aircraft to make a nationally televised emergency landing at Los Angeles International Airport on Wednesday.

While preliminary global data gathered by Airbus show an average of barely one such nose-gear malfunction every two years since the launch of the A320 jet family in the late 1980s, regulators and the European plane maker have considered the problem serious enough to warrant making minor design changes and issuing maintenance bulletins. JetBlue, which currently flies only Airbus A320s, experienced at least one earlier incident with a jammed nose wheel.

Yesterday, investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board said they were examining the maintenance logs of the JetBlue plane and planned to take apart its nose gear, to determine if maintenance lapses or other problems could have caused the front wheel to become stuck perpendicular to the centerline of the aircraft.

Since 1988, when the A320 family of twin-engine, narrowbody jetliners first went into service, Airbus estimates they have made some 24 million takeoffs and landings. There have been no fatalities or landing-gear collapses as a result of emergency landings caused by nose-gear malfunctions, according to Airbus, although the problems have cropped up on various U.S. and foreign carriers.

In 1999, following an emergency landing by an America West Airlines A320 in Columbus, Ohio, U.S. and French regulators ordered mandatory replacement of some parts to prevent hydraulic-fluid leaks that can cause nose gears to jam. Three years later, after a JetBlue plane was forced to put down at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport, mechanics were warned that improper assembly of shock-absorbers could cause a nose-gear malfunction.

Experts from Airbus, majority-owned by European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co., and its landing-gear supplier, Safran Group's Messier-Dowty unit, were en route yesterday evening to Los Angeles, where a three-hour televised drama ended with the pilots of JetBlue Flight 292 touching down on the main gear, gently bringing the nose gear in contact with the runway and skidding to a safe stop without any major fire.