Shimmy Dampers Where to Buy

The LORD® fluid-free shimmy damper offers high-performance damping and vibration control with a zero-maintenance design. It uses surface-effect technology to provide consistent damping for fixed and retractable landing nose gears. Instead of using fluids to resist motion, the shimmy damper features a unique elastomer formulation to absorb nose wheel shimmy. Since there is no fluid, this damper will never leak.

Zero-Maintenance Means No Maintenance. Ever.

Hydraulic dampers (sometimes called dampeners) use fluids to resist motion and fluid naturally leaks. Our shimmy damper was designed using a unique elastomer formulation (instead of fluid) to absorb nose wheel shimmy. Since there is no fluid, this damper will never leak.

We’ve tested the shimmy damper in real-life situations, including a flight school environment – one of the toughest for repetitive and unpredictable take off and landings. Our damper performs consistently for more than 20,000 ground-air-ground duty cycles. This represents a product life of more than 15 years of usage on the typical high-use aircraft.

Surface-Effect Technology

Our patented shimmy damper was designed using surface-effect technology, replacing the hydraulic piston in a traditional damper with a fully-bonded natural rubber or specially-blended elastomer compound piston that presses out against the inner diameter of the housing. This rubber piston then rides on a very thin film of lubricant and it is this movement between the piston and the housing that provides the damping. Since there is no hydraulic fluid to leak, there is no need to service the damper –the part is completely fluid free and maintenance free.

Elastomers Don’t Need to Adjust for Temperature Changes

Because there is no fluid, our surface-effect dampers operate consistently in the -40° to 150° Fahrenheit range with no compensation required. Traditional hydraulic dampers only provide peak energy dissipation in the 20° to 80° Fahrenheit temperature range.

Features and Benefits

• Valuable — Simple design provides high reliability and lowers operating costs
• Efficient — Simplicity of use (one-for-one replacement) and compatible with existing installation
• Reliable — Large diameter shaft increases durability and reduces wear of nose gear linkages
• Durable — No performance degradation over time and use
• Versatile — Consistent damping from -40° to 150°F