"Lou" wrote in message
...

This could be an interesting thread. There's a lot to this subject that
often gets overlooked.

Just a thought but the air/oil spring/shockabsorbers used on motorcycle
rear
suspenson might be useful in a trailing link maingear. They are fairly
light and the weight they support would be about the same as a 2-seater
light aircraft.

It's funny you should say that. I've wondering about that and possibly
the rear or
front shocks of the motocross bikes. They take a hell of a beating and
seem to stay
together.

My Kawasaki weighs about 700 pounds with 65% of that on the rear wheel. It
has a monoshock strut that has adjustable damping and is load adjustable by
adding compressed air. The trailing link lever arm is probably 4:1 so that
strut is holding up about 1600 pounds. Sounds like it might be workable.

BTW, there is a main gear design trick used on the very last piston engine
fighters like the Bearcat. The main struts rotated as they compressed so as
to increase the toe-out. This had the effect of making the airplane
resistant to a ground loop - in effect, steering into the skid. In a
swerve, the weight would transfer to the outside main wheel compressing that
strut and turning the wheel to the outside.