by Bernard Cawley
Mr. Cawley sent us these pictures of his T52 that he has been experimenting with. He wanted to be able to take off and land the plane from grass and was very successful with this landing gear installation. so study the pictures and it should be fairly easy to duplicate his efforts. Bernard writes a short explanation at the end of the pictures.
first start with a 2 mil scrap of coroplast and cut this shape with the ribs running up the side of the fuse
make a slice in one side of the piece so that it will bend nicely over the edges of the fuselage and open two of the ribs up to lay the torsion bar of the landing gear leg into. Bend up the landing gear of 3/32" wire to the shape shown here.
You can see how the two legs of the landing gear are installed side by side with the end poked up into a rib of the coroplast to hold the gear in position and allow some bending movement to absorb landing shock.
Now the landing gear holder is glued to the fuselage in the position you want, usually at about the leading edge of the wing.
After the fuselage is taped, use several strips of strapping tape to hold the gear legs into the channels of the coroplast. These will hold strong enough to last but will tear away should you inadvertently land harder than you should.
Now you will need a way to turn the plane on the ground so here is an easy way to add a tail wheel. Basically bend up a wire so that it runs up the hinge of the rudder and bend a tang at right angle so it can be pushed into the ribs. I have used goop and 5 min epoxy to hold it in plus Bernard used the rudder control horn to clamp in it also.
From:
Cawley, Bernard E [Bernard.Cawley@PSS.Boeing.com]
Sent:
Wednesday, June 27, 2001 11:58 PM
Subject:
"T-46" stuff, pix
Here
are the pictures I promised: some
of the landing gear arrangement I put on the "T-46" (Editors
note: Bernard shortened the wing to 46 inches)
and a couple of pictures
of the completed and flown airplane with the big rise-off-grass wheels.
As
you can see, the basic idea is a piece of 2mm corplast with the flutes running
vertically into which a torsion bar type two leg gear (3/32 wire is a tight fit)
is inserted. The vertical leg of the gear going into the coroplast needs to be
about 1.5 inches long for a good firm fit. The leftover gear I used first only
went up about 5/8 inch and this got sloppy really fast.
The
gear-mount piece of coroplast is located so that it fits up with the precut side
doublers and puts the gear near the LE of the wing. I attached the coroplast in
the same manner as the doublers - 3M 77 and a couple of wraps of strapping tape
- one forward of the gear plug-in locations, one aft. On the left side of the
plane this piece also serves as part of the wall of the battery area.
I
had to sweep the wire further forward for thick grass operations. I think legs
coming straight down, with wheels like those in the "under
construction" pictures would be just fine for hard surface operation and I
will get a chance to find out soon.
The
tailwheel (3/4 inch Sig nylon hubbed wheel) strut is just attached directly to
the rudder with Goop. There is a leg at the top of the strut going aft about 3/4
inch into a hole drilled in the corrugations. The bit of tape on there was just
to keep the Goop from gluing the hinge shut.
Looking
forward to BigT. Any thoughts of a less than 15% thick wing? I realize thick
helps with the bending stiffness.....
Bernard
Cawley