Has anyone built their own landing gear?

On May 11, 7:30 pm, Orval Fairbairn
wrote:
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.

--
Remove _'s from email address to talk to me.

I know, sounds ridiculous. But I look at it this way. Given the
numbers the way they
are, it may or may not hurt by putting in fixed gear. With insurance
cost going up
for retract, I didn't feel it to be a good investment. Also, this is
my first plane and
I want to keep it as simple as possible. Last but not least, and I'm
not sure on this,
but with the speeds and weight, it can qualify for LSA with fixed
gear.
Lou