ORIGINAL: Jack Diaz
On another subject: each wings is held in place by a screw that joins the fuse with the root rib. The main gear is massive, and when dropped tends to pull the wings outwards really hard (by inertia, when the gear stops suddenly in the down position). This outwards force is transmitted to the screw. My suggestion is to reinforce the fuselage with 1/8 ply at the screw location; and reinforce the root rib with 1/4 ply joining the upper and lower skins with the rib at the nut location (glued perpendicular to the rib). To visualize what I am saying, drop the gear with the wing installed without the screw, and see how the wing gets shot out....
To avoid the gear to drop so hard, and since I am using the EV5UPRO valve (no individual air flow control), I did the following:
-Install a check valve in the gear down line, oriented so that it stops the flow of air towards the gear cylinders.
-Bypass the check valve with a Dreamworks flow control valve, and adjust the flow to the minimum necessary for gear deployment.
-At the gear up command, the cylinders pressure will return via the check valve.
BTW, I understand you need over 110 psi to get the gear up in flight!!! I will let you know soon.
I also hate that the slams up and down. On some planes you almost expect the gear to come up through the wing as it slams so hard. Can't be good for the gear mechanism or the gear mounts in the wing.
To solve this I restrict the airflow of the exhaust port on the valve. It is much better (IMO) to restrict the exhaust flow as it makes the gear go really slow and smooth, but still with great force so it almost looks hydraulic. When you restrict the in airflow the gear tend to move irraticly and with out force.
On the jet-tronic valves for instance, I blind off one of the exhaust ports and install a festo fitting (M5) in the other. Insert a short piece of festo tubing in the fitting and slide a M3 wheel collar over the tube. Now you can control the flow and make the gear go as slow as you want by turning the wheel collar screw.
I'm sure there is an an exhaust port on the EV5, but you may have to thread it to install a fitting, or glue an air nipple in place with epoxy.
I have used this method on all my planes for many years, and even big heavy gears come up in a slow nice manner.
Looking forward to getting mine[8D]