jetflyer

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After fooling around with Flutz nose gear in my Reaper I finally just called Sierra Giant Scale and spoke to Darryl and told him what I needed. The Flutz gear held up well but if I landed hard it would bend. I'd have to use my vise and a hammer to straight it back out. My two flying buddies (Chuck & Gary) both have Facet 2300s and I've always like the nose strut it came with. After talking to Darrly he said I should go with the Hangar 9 Cessna 182 nose strut. So that is what I did and today I installed it in my Super Reaper. The quality of workman ship is top notch and it matches well with my main gear too. Below are some pictures and I will try out the new nose strut this weekend.

JR

jetflyer

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Here is another view

jetflyer

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one more view

jetflyer

My Feedback: (5)

Oh and one other thing I changed on my Super Reaper was going to a full flying canard setup. Chuck had purchased a Draco last year and I finally got around to constucting a new set of canards modeled after the ones that came with Chuck's Draco. Last Sunday was the first flight with the new setup and it was either going to be good or bad. It ended up being good and the Super Reaper flew quite well. In fact I believe it was more smooth then ever before. Previously I had alway had flutter problems with the canards and now I believe the problem has finally been resolved. I didn't get a change to wring it out much last Sunday because I was just happy flying around the pattern. I got up to about 1/2 throttle without any problems. On one runway pass I went to full and pulled verticle without issue. I'll test it more come this weekend.

JR

erbroens

It looks great, congrats. and just curious to know, does your old strut had this same geometry? (caster angle).

Enrique

jetflyer

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No, the old strut just came straight down. Darryl from Sierra Giant Scale told me I should have the strut rake forward a bit to allow the strut to absorb the shock. We actually talked a bit about this. In fact the Cessna 182 nose unit has a built in 5* angle in the mount. For the Hangar 9 Cessna it mounts in front of the firewall and rakes forward. Because I was mounting mine behind the firewall I had to flip the mount 180* so it would rake forward being mounted behind the firewall.

JR

Wayne22

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Interesting...We have the fults on our Reaper and have had it fold completely back and hit the belly, then spring back (well, most of the way back..) This was due to a really rough grass flying field, and us learning how to fly jets..... I'm acutally doing a major overhaul on it right now, so you timing is excellent!!!

Thanks for sharing !!

jetflyer

My Feedback: (5)

Nony,
Yeah mine would do the same. I have scuff marks on the under side of the fuse from the wheel scraping. With such a long fuselage I think the nose gear takes a lot of stress on landings. My regular flying field is a grass strip that is pretty smooth and well maintained. I'd definitely consider upgrading the nose unit with the one from Sierra. It was $120, but well worth it in my opinion. Plus it looks like jet landing gear instead of typical glow stuff from the LHS.

JR

siclick33

I wish I had your problem!!

My Reaper is on the bench again awaiting the nose gear former to be repaired for the second time. Even on fairly gentle landings my (Eurokit) noseleg gets ripped out of the former taking some of the wood with it. It definately wouldn't take enough punishment to bend the noseleg.

jetflyer

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siclick33,

On my Super Reaper I laminated two 1/4" aircraft grade plywood pieces together and glued them in with 1/2" triangle stock on each side front and back. If the nose gear mount rips off in mine I'm going to have other issues too.

JR

Countryboy

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Hey JR, what's up with that canopy & upper nose cone?

jetflyer

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Counrtyboy,

Well I have a mold of a canopy that I was going to use to try my hand at vacuum forming but I've never gotten around to trying it. This weekend I might wax up the mold and just try making a fiber glass one that I can paint black to dress up the Reaper a bit more. Right now I'm just happy to have it flying again.

JR