Lazair ultralight nosewheel, Lazair ultralight aircraft nose wheel failure.

Aircraft:
Lazair series 1 and 2

Incident report:
A group of students are gathered at an ultralight flight training field for an early morning lesson. As one of the students is ready to take off, his instructor tells him on his radio to hold up for a minute as another ultralight has entered the circuit and is preparing to land. The student moves his craft off the end of the runway, and watches as the craft approaches for landing. The craft, a Series 1 Lazair does the standard field circuit, and sets up on final.

The pilot is now in ground effect and his craft is skimming across the ground. The pilot is running out of usable runway and in an attempt to land pushes the stick forward. The craft strikes the runway on the nose wheel, bounces into the air, then strikes on the nose wheel once more.

The nose of craft then digs into the ground, the craft stands vertically on its nose for several seconds, then with the engines still running falls forward, and comes to rest inverted on the runway.

Both propellers have broken off the leading edge of the wings are damaged.  Nearly $2,000 worth of damage is done. Inspection reveals that the nose wheel has collapsed, this allowed the nose wheel support tubes to dig into the ground and thus resulted in the aforementioned damage.

Conversation with the pilot revealed that the wheel had been damaged earlier and repaired using Scotch tape. The pilot feeling that this would last until he could obtain a new wheel, since the wheel usually isn't used when landing, just taxiing.

Suggestions:
If you are flying with this style of wheel, we have many reports of its failure especially in cold weather. If found to be damaged or cracked, replace immediately.