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Speed,Combat,Scale,Racing => Rat Racing and Team Racing => Topic started by: Trostle on August 04, 2022, 11:59:57 AM
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I remember a picture from a magazine long ago. It had the single wheel landing gear bolted onto the head of the engine. I wonder how that worked out.
Keith
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I remember a picture from a magazine long ago. It had the single wheel landing gear bolted onto the head of the engine. I wonder how that worked out.
Keith
That was used by Jack Garcia on his inverted engine rat powered by Johnson 35 (of course, since Jack worked for Hi Johnson at the time) I believe Barr and Narsican (sp) used it on some of the early Firebird Rats also (Veco powered). The fins were milled off and the aluminum sheet metal gear was bolted on using the head bolts. Made for a lightweight, short, aerodynamic, landing gear. I flew Rat with them regularly back in the early 60's at Sepulveda Basin.
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Dave Dawson and I ran an inverted Johnson .35 with an aluminum dual gear mounted to the head in one of our Orange Crate racing events. The gear worked ok, but the piston/liner were a bit tired making it hard(er) to start.... I don't remember if it had a special head or how that was accomplished. It was the first one I had seen.
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My recollection of those that tried was that the cooling from the gear made the engine setting so unreliable as to make it all useless.
Bill
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Switch to Ti gear--thermal leak solved!
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I remember seeing the pictures of the rats with inverted engines and two-wheel gears mounted from the heads. I recognized four problems in addition to the over-cooling which never occured to me.
1 - I didn't have access to somebody to machine the head.
2 - Wood engine mounts could barely hold the engine, not to mention the landing gear stresses.
3 - A hard landing could break the engine into halves.
4 - Pitting an inverted engine.
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Eventually, that LG mounting system ended up becoming somewhat popular in the Proto speed events ie. B Proto and F-40.
For Rat racing...maybe if one used a soft wheel the c/case may survive the shock of pavement landings.
Les