trumpteb

thanks, this gives me a good place to start. I"m getting a good sampling of what to look at from several flyers.

trumpteb

thanks for the post...every word helps!

trumpteb

thanks, I'll look into them.

trumpteb

thanks, this helped.

trumpteb

every posting is helping!

trumpteb

You mentioned "Shindin" retracts...would you send me more on where to find them, I'm adding this to the list of "to look at".

trumpteb

After viewing posts to my question, the Sierra product has worked it's way to the top of my list...I do have some time so I can set $ aside...where do I find more info.?

trumpteb

LADO's are next on my list to "look at" where's a good place to start?

trumpteb

This is a very helpful post...I'm new at this 'bloging' or posting thing but am finding it is saving me a lot of time by reading what experiences other are having...really helps. My closest club is 85 miles...with gas priceses the way they are, I do a lot of 'at home' flying. tx's

fockewulf37

My Feedback: (102)

Here is Shindin's web site.....

http://www.shindinmachine.com/

Flyfast1

My Feedback: (1)

I have found Sierra Precision retracts to be the best in terms of quality and workmanship. By that I mean that the Sierra gear that I have purchased have all been well designed, well made with no slop and very sturdy and operate many cycles with no issues. I have also have some nice retracts from Shindin and would put them as a close second. I have also used several sets of Robart retracts with good success. Just be sure to get the right duty for the application and err on the side of getting a heavier duty set than what the specs say. As far as cost, I think Sierra is generally the most expensive, followed by Shindin and then Robart. Robarts are probably the quickest and easiest to get because they've got a lot of distributors--Tower, Chief, etc., that stock many of the popular retracts and sometimes these companies offer discounts and specials that can reduce the price further. I think what is the best value is a subjective decision that only you can make. In my own opinion, for an ARF warbird in the 72" range that was going to be used as a trainer or might otherwise not last long, I think Robarts are fine. For my 1/4 scale warbird projects (100"; 34 lbs +,) I prefer to spend a little more and get Shindin or Sierra.

Ed B.

trumpteb

My reply's will be late , long story... I have considered you comments and am adding them to the growing list of VERY knowledgable reply's I hope to let you know the outcome.
jhf

trumpteb

Larry,
I will wait for the Robarts. Thanks, I'll keep checking
jhf

paladin

My Feedback: (9)

My experience is:


Spring air – I have two sets . I’ld have more but they are for the same size model as the Rom-airs and $40 for Rom-Air’s or $120 for Spring-Air’s. For people just getting into retracts I highly recommend them! I have a 30 year old set that have just as meny landings on them as any of my roms they are presently in my flop tite Hollywood zero. They sway from side to side about and inch at the bottom of the wheels (where they set on the ground) because the stops are worn out from use and it is not a priority to add a new spacer. These have seen thousands of landings with cold rolled struts.

Robart – I owned a set of Zeroli Corsair retracts that worked flawlessly for 16 years. People would make it a point to tell me to expect problems with them, I kept looking for it but in 367flights over 16 years they were perfect.
I also owned a set of 605’s, I think, (the cheapo plastic air ones) they were terrible! The piston in the cylinder was too small and would only develop 7# of deploy force at 80psi while the retract end developed 12# so FO would get jammed in the mechanism during takeoff role and the gear would not deploy for landing every 10th or so flight. Also the set screw to remove the strut is positioned such that the retract mechanism has to be removed to adjust the toe – in. RoBo struts are the best. And if they will work in my application I will use them first.

Century Jet – is a love hate relationship. Bruce has made a lot of one of a kind things for me and he is one of the few people in the hobby that can take a drawing and turn the parts in a reasonable amount of time and it works the way it was intended. But getting adapters for his struts to Rom-Air mechanisms is impossible. Those adapters are good for about 100 flights (that is when I replace them they are probably good to 120 flights), the last set I ordered was in march of 2004. In May 2004 I broke one and took it to the local model shop and had ten made, still waiting for the CJ’s I ordered. I have quite a few CJ struts and they do require more maintenance than others but they will make you a strut to fit your application with out drawings and in a reasonable amount of time.

Shindlin – I ordered a set of retracts from him in he promised a 6 week turn, I got a 57 week turn. I have not used those retracts, so the turn was not a problem, but they look good. Heavy but good.

Seiara – I ordered a set for my KMP Focke Wulf 190 and will use them this summer. They came quickly, look great and are light.

Mechanical retracts – These have a limitation in the wt of the strut. That retract servo is set up to shout down if overloaded so it may work in the shop but most people retract the gear in the up wind turn which applies a G force to the model. This causes bent pushrods and sometimes the servo gets overloaded and the gear shout down half way up. Cycling them while in level flight will bring them up but when it happens it is disconcerting if you don’t know what is happening. So Oleos and heavy wheels are out on these type retracts.

Pressure in an air system many manufacturers will tell you to run 120psi. I never run over 80psi because to increase above that you have to twist tie or keep the hose ends to keep the hydraulic shock from bouncing them off the barbs (nipples). Also at 120 psi you need to bring the air pressure below 60psi while sitting on the flight line to prevent the heat in the aircraft from building the pressure enough to pop one of the lines off the barb. At 80psi after a flight I’m usually around 68psi a safe range. If 80 psi does not give you the number of retracts you want for margin of safety (after a 10 minute wait, I want 6 for new hose and less than three requires hose replacement) add more tank volume.

Hope this helps

Joe

Rom-Air was my first set of retracts (1977) I still have them they work fine. They are the most numerous retracts I own. I pick up a set every now and then at swop meets and recondition them. I’ve put them into planes weighting to 15# (anything over 12# has to be OLEO’ed). They do not lock in the clean position, so air pressure has to hold them up.

p-80

My Feedback: (1)

just for a question does anyone know if lado retracts have an option for a mount that comes with the actuators because i would like a set but do not want to take appart my other set of retracts they are robart 701 i believe with robostruts look to be good o and this may be a stupid question but were do i get a fitting to attach the hose to an air compressor besides the hand pump they offer thank you


travis

Chad Veich

My Feedback: (60)

I'll put in my .02 cents as well, though it may sound very familiar.

Robart - I've had a couple of sets of the larger Robart gear, rotaters in my Byron P-40 and Corsair, and a set of non rotaters in a Ziroli Jug, and all have been bullet proof. I've got another set waiting to go in my Yak-11 right now and they look great as well. I've not used their smaller retracts but I have heard the same horror stories that others have shared previously.

Shindin - I've got a set of these for my Brian Taylor Spitfire and they look good, don't have slop, were priced great, and seem up to the job. However, I've not put them in an airplane yet so the verdict is still out on them. I've heard good reports from many others using Shindin retracts and very little negative so I'm confident they will be fine.

Sierra Precision - Absolutely the best engineered, best looking, and most scale retracts I've had from any source. Also the most expensive and they can be very slow to ship in some instances.

CJM - I've had CJM gear for the Yellow Spitfire, the CJM Spitfire, the TF .60 size Mustang, the G&P Sales P-38, and the TF P-40. I've not been happy with any of them with the possible exception of the Mustang gear. (I only purchased two of those directly from CJM, the rest were acquired second had though all but the Yellow Spitfire and TF P-40 were NIB) They seem to be made from very low grade material, all except the Mustang gear had excessive (understatement) slop in both the up locked and down locked positions, scissors were attached with pop rivets, and just plain bad looking with machine marks, scratches, and just generally poor construction. I've not seen a new set of CJM gear in several years so the good things I read here at RCU by some folks leaves me hopeful that their quality has improved.

Spring-Air - Only had one set but they were good quality and worked fine.

trumpteb

I am keeping a running list of options which are excallent comparasions to what's being used and the threds from chad and paladin give me more insite into what goes on after you install. I first thought retract just, well, went up and down without much of a problem! Knowing how to maintaince them is important (understatement). Another question comes up (as I accumulate $$ for this project) resulting from the mention of servos...it sounds as thought you have to have a servo(s) designed for this job, not just the typical surface type. Also, since I use the 600 type battery in everything, with all this "pull", I might have to go to a 1000. Right?

Still accumulating
trumpteb

LDM

My Feedback: (15)

anyone know if the Sierra Retracts for the KMP 70" span FW190 are scale . I know they dont have scissors and need that to be added but do they have the swing are that goes from the gear leg to the retract base ?
I cant tell from the pics ?

Chad Veich

My Feedback: (60)

Trumpteb, the only place you will need specialty type servos will be with the mechanical retracts such as those that came with the H9 Jug. All the retracts being discussed above are of the pneumatic type which do not require anything beyond a standard servo to operate the air valve. If you decide to go with the mechanical retracts that came with the Jug then most folks are suggesting that you not use anything less than the recommended JR servos. Supposedly these JR servos do not like to be operated on 6 volts so some guys are using a 4.8 volt pack just for the retracts and are using a seperate 6 volt flight pack. That is what I plan to do with my Jug.

paladin

My Feedback: (9)

Trumpeteb, I use any servo that is no longer trustworthy for main controls on pneumatic retracts and throttle. As was stated before the big $$$$ servos are for mechanical retracts. As for battery a standard 60 size war bird has two servo’s for aileron, and flap, one for Elevator, Rudder, throttle, and retract. That is 8 servo’s, twice as many as in the sport plans that run on 700mah batteries, I use 1300mah on 60 size war birds, and pay special attention to servo’s that could be stalled. Never power your model with Nmhi, or Li Poly without talking to someone with experience in that type of battery because they have a higher internal resistance than the NiCad’s we are used too.

I have a lot of 22in-oz servo’s left over from 704 scale combat so that is what I have been using for Ret. And T.

I love the guys who think retracts are a buy and fly item (no maint. required), they provide me with cheap retracts.

Joe

Lancair888

Using anything other then spring air is foolish and you should be ashamed.

Air up/down rectracts are the dumbest idea EVER, I have seen every brand fail, to the detriment of every model.
They fail, the air fails, leaks, valve fails, ect. I would NEVER EVER trust ANY of my models to pneumatic retracts, EVER.

Lets recap....

Mechanical retracts, 99.9% success rate, inspect for bent gear and mantain smooth operation, make sure you have bec so u don't overload servo and lose flight control.
These will almost never fail, downside they don't make them for large models, wish they would.
- Not really scale opperation at all. Not available in large models.
+ Works 99.9% of the time, reliable.

Pneumatic (air up/down) retracts. Horrible foolish junk, lets trust our $100-$10,000 model on some tiny little air cylinder and hose, if you get a leak you have NO wheels if they get stuck half in or out, your screwed. BAD, BAD, BAD, only fools and noobs would trust in this garbage, even real planes would never use this, so why would you trust it in your model? These have a 50/50 success rate at best when rediculous attention and maintenance are used on them.
+ Can perform totaly scale
- High failure rate, no backup, if they fail ur screwed

Spring air (air up, spring down) When you have an air failure these retracts automatically deploy, you ALWAYS have wheels using this type, they are 99.9% successful.
What more can u say? they work always, this is the only logical choice other then mechanical, pneumatic should not even be sold, or allowed there dangerous.
+ Always come down on failure, no more belly landings. Can raise scale. Failure means your wheels came down, telling you they failed, and giving you wheels 99.9% of the time.
- Can not lower scale, they come down fast at the same time.

Choose wisely, scale is nothing when your model is busted or damaged. lose 1 scale detail to maintain your models integrity for life.

BigRetracts-RCU

I guess the majority of us are just plain dumb.

Lancair888

Sorry I call it like I see it, even my old man is using pneumatics on his 4k mustang and the bottoms been messed up since the mainden thanks to this pos design.
Yes if you use these type of retracts, imo that makes you a dumb modeler.

If you care about the time and money and love spent on your model you would not risk it on a major point, the landing gear, using shoddy flawed designs.
It's comon sense really people. Your model will look very scale when its being repaired every other flight from belly landings from failed pneumatic garbage gear.

I love scale as much as most people but I find it horribly foolish to wager my beloved model on a known bad design, if my model has spring airs, and is totally scale everything else, the odds are my model will last alot longer then anyone using pneumatics with there totally scale model, guess who wins?

Wise up, buy spring air, and they wouild probly expand there line, and scale deployment could be designed with some effort im sure.

No I do not work for the hobby industry in any way shape or form I do tech support for the government, so I deal with foolish designs day in and day out lol

Sorry I am direct and to the point, yes I offended folks, im sorry, you should know better, your all modellers of varying degrees of competent skill levels, why haven't you seen the error in your choice? if scale means more to you then keeping your model flying in 1 peice you ought not be in this hobby, you might want to stick with plastic static models of things.

Spring air if you read this, start making retracts for all models sizes and start designing a scale drop mechanism and you can take over the world of model retract sales, provided they are quality peices of course

paladin

My Feedback: (9)

I still have my first and only pair of Spring Airs in my Flop Tite Hollywood Zero they are a bit loosy goosy because of thousands of landings, the stops need some TLC. My main complaint is I like to lift off slow and bring the gear up while still close to the runway and the pop they make wakes all the old guys sleepin in their lawn chairs in the pits. nothin makes them crankier!

12 sets of non springed flying right now and more on the way with no air leak caused failures to deploy.

Not bad for a dumby

Joe

Chad Veich

My Feedback: (60)

Another dummy here, and proud of it!