Gary,

You are not crazy, not by a long shot. Your thinking on load transferring of landing stresses to the airframe are exactly on the mark. Stiffer LG definitely are not the best for our purposes. The gear I have designed and been building for my pattern planes are balsa cored and carbon laminated specifically to produce a more flexible, shock absorbing gear strut. The fuse mount can be minimized with such gear, reducing weight overall.

Commercially available composite gear are far stiffer than they need to be and will tend to do damage in a rough landing. Nevertheless, do not take dremel to a composite gear unless you really know what you are doing.

MattK
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Either I didn't make myself clear or you misread me. I plan on installing heavier duty LG.
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OK, fine...my point is to make sure it is reasonably flexible.

MattK