RE: Pilatus PC12
I dont know if the fiberglass can support the whole wheight of the aircraft. Also, how would you design the whole mechanical system to make it retract? Are you talking about an existing landing gear? Thats why I would just "dress up" a wire landing gear becuse designing a retract from scratch is sort of a daunting task, these mechanical engineers spend months designing that stuff. You could probably design the "dress up" out of fiberglass, but keep the gear metal, remember, structurally, all of the load gets transferred to those landing gears. the whole airplane load + impact will have to be absorbed by those 3 landing gears, so it has to be really strong and thats why you dont see the gears on any airplane made out of composites, only fuses and wings. Also, I pick my battles, If I know I could do something practically, I'll do it. If its not practical, its easier to just buy a ready made assembly.