Making my landing gear

On Sat, 27 Mar 2004, Pierre wrote:


You made your main gear! Impressive. I'd be curious (and i suppose other
people too) to learn how you went about it. Composite?


Yes, I used the formulas from Pazmany. For my 900 lb empty craft, I came
up with 1.5" thick by 4" wide in the center of the hoop, which tapers to
..75" thick by 3" wide at the axle attachment.

I made a mold from plywood, the proper shape. And an oven to cure the
epoxy. I used "S glass roving" fiberglass strands. I had planned to
compress the fibers in the mold, but it setup before I could get all
the fibers layed up.

After the hoop cured, I added foam to the leading and trailing edges,
then carved it to an airfoil shape and layed up two plies of cloth.

It works great, Five years now, and a few really hard landings.
I used Cozy plans for the attachment concept.

The Swings were a big help (Owners of Velocity Aircraft).
Any questions ?


George Graham
RX-7 Powered Graham-EZ, N4449E
Homepage http://bfn.org/~ca266