Well now, I seem to be on a roll this weekend don't I?? But yes, I have been in a bit of a groove this weekend and I'm getting this build thread caught up somewhat. Since we have the front landing gear mounted, let's go ahead and mount the main landing gear. This is a really pretty quick step to take care of. It's pretty straight forward and shouldn't take you much time at all to get done.

The first thing we'll need to do is mark the landing gear block for where we need to drill the holes for our landing gear to sit in. The easiest way to mark for drilling is to simply transfer the location of our holes from the plans, picture #1 shows how I marked the landing gear block to drill. Next use a hand drill to drill out the holes for the landing gear (picture #2). Looking at picture #3 you can see that the landing gear won't sit flat in the landing gear block because there is a curve in the wire of the landing gear, and the hole that we drilled makes for a sharp 90° corner. What we need to do is “round off” this corner (picture #4) so that landing gear wire will sit down flat in the landing gear block (picture #5). Next we'll need to find the two nylon straps from the parts in the kit (picture #6), this will be used to retain the landing gear in place. Mounting them is pretty simple in that we'll drill out the holes for the screws that mount the straps in the landing gear block. The easiest way to place this is so they are evenly spaced on the landing gear, then mark the holes for drilling out (picture #7). Use a small drill bit to drill pilot holes for the screw holes (picture #8), and then run the mounting screw down the hole in order to cut the threads in the holes (picture #9). Back out the screws and run a little bit of thin CA into the hole to harden the threads (picture #10). Give the CA a few minutes to dry before you put the screws in, then go ahead and mount the retaining straps (picture #11). Picture #12 shows the finished mounting of the landing gear wire.

Pictures
1. Marking the location of the holes needed for the landing gear
2. Drill out the holes to mount the landing gear in
3. Landing gear will not sit flat because of the “curve” in the landing gear wire
4. Round out the edge of the hole
5. Now the landing gear will sit flush into the landing gear block
6. Nylon straps used to hold down the landing gear
7. Mark the holes for the nylon strap mounting screws
8. Drill a pilot hole for the mounting screw
9. Use the screw to cut threads in the holes
10. Use thin CA to harden the threads in the holes
11. Install the nylon straps and the mounting screws
12. Finished landing gear wires.

Until next time

Ken