Modified GP Gee Bee pants for Robart struts
Hey all you Gee Bee R-2 lovers! I had problems with the stock wire gear twisting on hard landings with my Great Planes Gee Bee R-2 causing the wheels to contact the wheel pants. This caused a braking effect on the wheel resulting in nose overs. So, I bought the Robart struts for this plane. After I installed the Robart struts, I noticed that they compressed fairly easily for a 12lb plane and guessed that they would probably bottom-out on a hard landing and let the pants contact the ground causing nose-overs.
The real Gee Bee R-2 had wheel fairings attached to the wheel fork with telescoping pants to prevent this from happening, so I decided to do the same. I couldn't use the scale, molded-in joint as the telescoping joint because the Robart struts are not parallel to the leading edge of the pants. I had to make the joint further up the pants instead. The Robart struts compress just less than 1", so the joint had to be at least that far from the molded-in joint to avoid contact with the added sleeve. First, I drew the cutout and sleeve overlap areas on the pants. The sleeve would be made out of aluminum roof flashing and be glued to the wide end of the pants and overlap the narrow end 1/4". The area to be cut out is scribbled over in the picture below.