Gear placement when adding floats?
01-24-2014, 12:59 PM
#1
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Gear placement when adding floats?
Will fly mostly from grass strip, BUT - since I live near a giant lake with many coves....Where do I put the mounts on fuse for floats? It is a taildragger & all framed up, so now is time to put reinforcement blocks in fuse. I know one will be a bit forward of existing mains, the other a little more than that distance aft. Need info & searched for thread, but cant get the search on this site to help me - maybe I'm an idiot.
01-24-2014, 01:36 PM
#2
Hi, I have done many float conversions quite successfully even four engine float planes.
I woud recommend that the most important goal would be to position the float step around one quarter inch behind the CG of the airplane where it flys well at when on wheels. This should also be our target CG/float step relationship after changeover to floats. Doing so will facultate the quick changeover between floats and wheels without the need to rebalance.
This is accomplished since with most of our airplanes when converted to floats will end up tailheavy when the floats are installed in the right place. So its easy to just add lead in a hole at the bow of the float to balance when on the floats so now you not have to rebalance during wheel/float changeovers.
Now to the answer of your question. It would be a whole lot easier if you would have told us the whole story and exactly what type of airplane we are taking about. So I am gonna guess that its a flat bottom fuselage. Since that is the easiest scenario. With a flat fuse bottom the best place to locate the strut s would be across the bottom of the fuselage using three quarter inch wide flat aluminum struts at the leading and trailing bulkhead of the wing saddle.
Now all that necessary is to epoxy some plywood plates across the inside bottom of the fuselage a these bulkheads just inside wing compartment.
John
I woud recommend that the most important goal would be to position the float step around one quarter inch behind the CG of the airplane where it flys well at when on wheels. This should also be our target CG/float step relationship after changeover to floats. Doing so will facultate the quick changeover between floats and wheels without the need to rebalance.
This is accomplished since with most of our airplanes when converted to floats will end up tailheavy when the floats are installed in the right place. So its easy to just add lead in a hole at the bow of the float to balance when on the floats so now you not have to rebalance during wheel/float changeovers.
Now to the answer of your question. It would be a whole lot easier if you would have told us the whole story and exactly what type of airplane we are taking about. So I am gonna guess that its a flat bottom fuselage. Since that is the easiest scenario. With a flat fuse bottom the best place to locate the strut s would be across the bottom of the fuselage using three quarter inch wide flat aluminum struts at the leading and trailing bulkhead of the wing saddle.
Now all that necessary is to epoxy some plywood plates across the inside bottom of the fuselage a these bulkheads just inside wing compartment.
John
