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Building Tips and technical articles. => Building techniques => Topic started by: John Castle on October 27, 2009, 10:54:10 AM
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This perplexes me a little bit. On a profile plan it will show a pattern to bend the landing gear wire that is one piece. Then it shows the typical installation with a hole in front of the leading edge and straps on the side. This is fine except how do you get the bent gear into the hole? Is there something I'm missing here?
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I can see why it may have caused some confusion, but the answer is simple. Place the wire gear in the wing opening before installing the wing. H^^
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As stated above , one way is put the gear onto the body first, then install the wing. The downside is that the gear is in the way for painting and sanding.
Another way is to make the hole a little oversize, then install the gear and fill it in after the plane is covered and painted. If the extra clearance is in the form of a slot that parallels the thrust line (between the engine mounts), it won't really weaken the plane.
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Good ideas...Thanks for the help.
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If you move the gear just a little bit forward, drill a 3/8 hole through the fuselage, and cut the gear in half. OK, now you take a piece of 3/8 aluminum rod, drill a 1/8 hole all the way through. Epoxy this rod into the fuselage. You will have to make a grove at the bottom to accept the bent LG wire. You can do all of your fuselage finishing and when you bolt the gear on it will not twist around. This works very well for airplanes such as the Sig Twister.
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Here's another way, which makes maintainence very easy. The gear is bolted to the bottom of the fuselage with one or two #6 sheet metal screws into a piece of motor mount stock(or 3-4 layers of plywood). For appearance you can inset the mount block between the ply doublers to conceal most of the landing gear mount.
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I really like your idea, Phil. It also allows you to reposition the gear if necessary.
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I think I'd like 2 screws in that, though, so it wouldn't be prone to misalignment.
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Gear mounted to bottom. nice part is you can put extra inserts in the bottom and move the gear to where it works best. I put a piece of 1/16 rubber sheet between the fuse and the gear so I don't have a metal to wood contact.
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Greg, where did you get thay gear? It is awesome. Have fun, DOC Holliday
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My last profile, the gear was two legs. In this case carbon fiber ones that I laid up myself. 3 bolts went through the fuse to hold it on. Worked pretty slick. I'd show a picture but unfortunately, I lost a hard drive with all my pictures. Sigh...
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<Greg, where did you get that gear? It is awesome. Have fun, DOC Holliday>
Home made.
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Randy's "Ringmaster Deluxe" CF landing gear. Pretty fancy. How much did the bare legs weigh? #^ Steve
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Steve,
Don't remember. Nothing remarkable.
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I have been sing this type gear on profiles for a long time. It doesn't come loose.
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The method I used on both profiles Aetos and Megas Aetos. I mount the landing gear in the area below and between the wing leading edge and the back of the tank. See attached. With this method you also have a small torsion-bar to absorb the not so smooth landings and making them almost perfect landings.
My 2¢
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Almost any way but the way the stock Ringmaster/Sterling/Goldberg kits do it is better. Building the gear into the plane before it is painted is just nuts. And it always wicks oil into the fuse/wing joint, and sooner(never later) starts looking scuzzy.
One other point, adding a spreader bar as in the picture above does wonders for stiffening the gear and makes for much better landings. Oftentimes you can go one size smaller on the wire and it still will be stiff enough.