ORIGINAL: smithcreek
ORIGINAL: ytrewq
Hi,
Thanks for the link.
When I purchased the kit about 15 years ago the dealer warned me that the under carriage was a weak point and that the tail end would have to be built light to save having to add lead to the short nose, so adding to the all up weight.
When I have read through your build thread I will probably contact you directly if that is O.K.
Thanks
Alan
Feel free to contact me and/or post on the other thread, questions, pictures of your build, whatever. The under carriage definitely has a lot of potential for damage. It has fairly tall gear with wheel pants/spats attached to the gear near the bottom of the gear and attached to the wing. The plans state that flying wires are optional, but I'm considering the bottom wires essential so I don't destroy the wheel pants and possibly tear a chunk out of the bottom of the wing sheeting. Wires on the bottom will keep the landing gear from raking from side to side and I think that's what would cause the most damage. I considered changing the gear to use some Robart Oleo struts, but finding a strut that would take a 4'' wheel and fit inside the wheel pants was not easy. There was a set that might have worked, I can't remember which ones, they were for an ARF, maybe something like the Ryan here: [link=http://www.robart.com/catalog/secure/uploads/file/RSDim%20Drawings/RYN.pdf]Robart Ryan gear[/link]. In the end I just decided to go with regular wire, the $165 cost was a factor also.
The tail feathers build very light as long as you use the glue sparingly, it's all the blocks back there. When I built mine I did an initial carving of the tail blocks, then realized I could take off a lot more wood to get a more correct scale appearance, so in the end there wasn't too much extra wood left.
in regards to "The plans state that flying wires are optional, but I'm considering the bottom wires essential so I don't destroy the wheel pants and possibly tear a chunk out of the bottom of the wing sheeting. Wires on the bottom will keep the landing gear from raking from side to side and I think that's what would cause the most damage."
Trust me use all the flying wires. I had a beautiful aeronca c-3 with an 80 inch wing supposed to use 12 flying wires in all to support the wing and hold it to the plane. I said forget it because the interfere with my fm
non 2.4 radio instead used 4 bolts through aluminum rod to secure the wing and 30 feet from the ground after takeoff the wings folded up and down she went. she needs the flying wires for support.