Has anyone built their own landing gear?

I'm curious if anyone has either designed and built or built from
plans, their own
landing gear and how they did it. I know, I know, I could follow the
plans. But the plans call for a retractable gear system that I don't
want at this time. What I'm looking for is a oleo strut style with
brackets that attach to the spars. Anyone?
Anyone? Anyone?
Lou

simplest I've seen is the Hummelbird , which has an internal spring inside a
single tube connected to the front wing spar. Connection bracketry might be
adaptable to your oleo type...
"Lou" wrote in message
...
I'm curious if anyone has either designed and built or built from
plans, their own
landing gear and how they did it. I know, I know, I could follow the
plans. But the plans call for a retractable gear system that I don't
want at this time. What I'm looking for is a oleo strut style with
brackets that attach to the spars. Anyone?
Anyone? Anyone?
Lou

Lou wrote:
I'm curious if anyone has either designed and built or built from
plans, their own
landing gear and how they did it. I know, I know, I could follow the
plans. But the plans call for a retractable gear system that I don't
want at this time. What I'm looking for is a oleo strut style with
brackets that attach to the spars. Anyone?
Anyone? Anyone?
Lou


What design, Lou?

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Now just why the HELL do I have to press 1 for English?
John Wayne

"cavelamb himself" wrote in message
...
Lou wrote:
I'm curious if anyone has either designed and built or built from
plans, their own
landing gear and how they did it. I know, I know, I could follow the
plans. But the plans call for a retractable gear system that I don't
want at this time. What I'm looking for is a oleo strut style with
brackets that attach to the spars. Anyone?
Anyone? Anyone?
Lou


What design, Lou?

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Now just why the HELL do I have to press 1 for English?
John Wayne

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.

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.
Caveman, it's called an Asso V. Asso is Italian for Ace or thats
what I've been told. The picture
that the link goes to is red, so that means that somewhere there is a
big red asso flying around.
Lou

http://www.homebuilt.org/kits/littner/champion.html

On May 11, 4:20 am, Lou wrote:
I'm curious if anyone has either designed and built or built from
plans, their own
landing gear and how they did it. I know, I know, I could follow the
plans. But the plans call for a retractable gear system that I don't
want at this time. What I'm looking for is a oleo strut style with
brackets that attach to the spars. Anyone?
Anyone? Anyone?
Lou

First, the disclaimer: I have no personal experience building such a
gear.

The design and fabrication of an oleo-pneumatic landing gear is not,
IMHO, impossible for a dedicated homebuilder, but it looks pretty
challenging. Ladislao Pazmany wrote a book "Landing Gear Design for
Light Aircraft" that tells you how, and his Pl-1 and PL-2 designs have
plans for such a gear. Much welding and machining to a fairly high
standard is required.

http://www.pazmany.com/

Perhaps better you should visit an aircraft salvage yard and see if
anything from the main gear of a Piper Cherokee or the nose gear of
either a Piper or Cessna will work for your application.

Lou wrote:
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.
Caveman, it's called an Asso V. Asso is Italian for Ace or thats
what I've been told. The picture
that the link goes to is red, so that means that somewhere there is a
big red asso flying around.
Lou

http://www.homebuilt.org/kits/littner/champion.html

That looks suspiciously like a Falco!

1000 pounds gross weight
Say 3 G's impact loading (on each leg, becaues sometimes that's exactly
what happens.

I'g go with 3000 pounds leg loading vertical and 1-1/2 G side load (1500
pounds)

Are you up on landing gear design?
(I'm guesing no, since you are asking here)

How about this...
Build it per plans, but with a fixed retract link?


Richard

And it's Lamb, Lou.
We're real sensitave about that the since Geico commercials.

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(remove the X to email)

Now just why the HELL do I have to press 1 for English?
John Wayne

"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.

And it's Lamb, Lou.
We're real sensitave about that the since Geico commercials.


Sorry Cavelamb, I think I've done that before.
Nothing personal.
Other people have said it looks like a small falco. Maybe
I should finish this up so I can build a Falco.
Lou

In article
,
Lou wrote:

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.
Caveman, it's called an Asso V. Asso is Italian for Ace or thats
what I've been told. The picture
that the link goes to is red, so that means that somewhere there is a
big red asso flying around.
Lou

http://www.homebuilt.org/kits/littner/champion.html

I have a question:

Why do you want to cobble up such a beautiful, clean design with a fixed
landing gear? It seems to me that you want to spend a lot of time,
effort and money on making your plane slower and less efficient than the
basic design.

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