Building Tips and technical articles. > Building techniques

Mounting landing gear in a foam wing

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Dwayne:
Hi could someone please post pics on how to mount landing gear in a foam wing.
Thank you
Dwayne

Paul Smith:
can do easy

Dwayne:
Thanks Paul

Paul Smith:
You just axed for pitchers, but here's little text to go along with them.

What I have here is a box beam spar that mounts both the landing gear and the bellcrank, and also joins the two wing halves.  It's mostly balsa except for the hardwood channels for the landing gear and the hard points for the bellcrank.  The landing gear is my standard torsion bar setup with the wire twisting in the channel and an anti-rotation bend near the centre of the wing.

Bob Hunt:
Paul's setup is certainly strong, but here's another method that has proven to be far more than strong enough and is by far lighter and easier to install.

I developed the method of installing 1/8 inch thick landing gear "clips" or ribs that but up against a full-depth spar at the rear and sit flush with the surface of the core, allowing the wing sheeting to contact them and impart strength to the entire assembly.

I layout and cut 1/8 inch slots from the leading edge back to the full-depth spar and then insert a piece of 1/8 inch Lite-Ply into the slot. I trace around the wing shape onot the plywood and then remove the plywood and layout "lands" onto which custom built landing gear plates will sit later on. It is extremely light and requires very little foam be cut away in order to install the clips or plates. I've performed this procedure on hundreds of wings since developing the method in the early 1970s. I've never had a landing gear failure with this method, not has any of my customers reported any failures. In fact one of my customers recently had a stooge release his model before he was out to the handle. The model actually got airborne before my friend grabbed the down line out of the air (lucky grab!). The model abruptly hit the ground at speed right on the landing gear. The impact bent the outboard landing gear back far enough that the rear end of the wheel pant went clean through the UPPER surface of the wing! The gear wire was bent, but the mount din't even crack! He re-bent the gear, fixed the wing covering where the wheelpant had punctured through and he is still flying that ship. He says he'll never use any other gear mount method!

Hopefully the photos will tell the story. One of them depicts the finished system with cover/gear retainer plate already in place on a built-up wing. It works just as well in a built up system as it does in a foamer!

Later - Bob Hunt

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