Lanier Shrike 40 ARF -- Landing Gear Blocks Are A Joke
 

Well, I found out why so many are having problems with the Lanier Shrike 40 ARF's main landing gears. The blocks installed in the wing to support them are a joke. They are about 1/4" thick soft-hard wood blocks. The very first time you put more than a feather weight on your gear it will crack this block and collapse the landing gear.

This is what happend to mine. The right gear collapsed on the very first flight and my landing was very smooth.

I cut into the wing and EASILY removed the landing gear blocks, each mounted between two ribs. The fact I was able to remove these blocks with no subsequent damage to the ribs SAYS IT ALL. How Lanier expected this to support the landing gear is a complete mystery to me.

I cut two oak hardwood blocks the same width and length as the originals. Unlike the originals the blocks are just shy of an inch thick. I routed a groove along the length like the original and drilled a snug hole on the servo side of the mount. I also routed a rabbit joint on each end of the blocks to allow the thickness of the block to extends down into the wing cavity flush against the side of the plywood riblet. I slobbered 30-minute epoxy on the entire rabbit joint. Nothing short of severe wing damage will occur before these blocks even think of breaking.

I flew the plane Saturday and made several landings, some smooth, some very much less than smooth -- no main landing gear problems.

BTW, I communicated this problem with Lanier -- I only asked them for a piece of checkerboard covering to place over my repairs. Since I have not received a response I can only assume they ignored my email. Well, that's OK, I will ignore their products in the future -- I really don't need the Giant Stinger ARF I've been pineing for.

RE: Lanier Shrike 40 ARF -- Landing Gear Blocks Are A Joke
 

If you are using the tank supplied, you may want to check it out and maybe replace it. The tank in my Lanier Explorer 40 split at the bung hole and dumped about four or five ozs of fuel in the fuselage, soaking everything. What a mess. This just capped, I hope, a really bad experience with my first ARF. Not happy at all.

Don

RE: Lanier Shrike 40 ARF -- Landing Gear Blocks Are A Joke
 

I carefully inspected the tank before installing -- there appears to be no problems with mine. NOTE: This is an item that, IMHO, falls into a category of one bad one in many. It is your standard hard nylon fuel tank -- they are all manufactured with seems. If you thread that screw in the cap too tight you will burst the seem. I routinely thread the screw until I just start to feel the torque -- a couple of turns later is where I set it. I do this based on personal experience; I have had tanks splt their seems and other tanks that develope leaks at the cap because it was not installed tight enough.

RE: Lanier Shrike 40 ARF -- Landing Gear Blocks Are A Joke
 

I inspected mine also. I didn't really like what I saw, but the fuselage was built around a tank of that design, so a DuBro or Sulivan tank woould not fit. The bung supplied was very hard, so I replaced it with one from a DuBro tank and the scrws were tightened just enough to hold everyting together and not allow the vent tube to spin. When I removed the tank and got a look at what went wrong, you could see that the seam area was thin and the heavy plastic around the bung thined to a V with a good surface on the face but thin on the back.

You are probably right about the one of many. It's just that it was just one of a long list of problems with the plane. Today, the ailerons have about 1/3 of their travel in trim. We can't find a warp, but something is screwing it up.

Don