FliteMetal

I'm looking for mains and nose gear for a Smith Tu-95 Bear.

donnyman

Can't believe you live in Houston and haven,t spoken to B.B. Weber of bomber field fame. his bear has been airborne for a long time. sorry can't help on address. Good luck. go to any field and mention his name I bet you will get a response.

Chad Veich

My Feedback: (60)

What makes you think Ed is not familiar with B.B. Weber?

Ed, are you looking for a set second hand? Is CJM no longer making the retracts?

TLH101

My Feedback: (90)

The set on BB's Bear were custom built by Charlie Stevens, if I remember correctly.

donnyman

Damfino! just trying to be friendly!

FliteMetal

Thanks for the feedback guys....

Sorry I have not been here to reply to your posts and comments.

I obtained one of the two plansets Bob Walker drew for the Tu-95. They were
used for length confirmations primarily for making a scale set. The one's Bob
created are somewhat close, but not enough for what's needed in the project.

BB lost his gear drawings that came with the set Bob made...the only set that
was ever made by Bob. I began tracking Bob and used an old cell number I'd
almost forgotten about from Top Gun registration and caught him on the road
somewhere in Florida.

Bob had given George a copy but it was given with condition of non-disclosure
so I needed to clear the decks with Bob for George to send them to me. Got
them in a day or two after I first posted here.

I packaged up about 3 meg of Tu-95 documentation and sent it with all George's
calculations and mark-ups from his drawings so there will finally be a scale Tu-95
landing gear.

Back when Bob did BB's he did it more or less as a challenge to see if it could be
done using traditional materials. This was a curiosity project for Bob and I would
hate to think what the mill time costs if it were being charged out. Its not as if the
drawing was made and poof it all came together as a plan.

Bob was pleased I wanted the drawings. Brought back some memories for him. I
wonder how many other one offs he's done for folks just to see if he could... ; )

On another angle of the Tu-95 subject...

George Maiorana leaves Friday morning for Muncie. He's going to maiden the Tu-95
at the X pad on Friday. It fast taxied today with success...almost too much speed as
the nose kept wanting to get light with little effort from those contra-rotating props.

It pulls in excess of 22# of static thrust with the rheaostat to the firewall. All up weight
is 32.1# for a wing loading of 54 oz./sq.ft. The other two Flite-Metal poster children
weighed within a gnats wing of this and equal loading...so George is happy.

Dave Pinegar is flying in Friday morning from South Carolina to do the Bear driving.
With the literal hundreds of flights Dave has on George's designs there isn't much of
a learning curve. Unfortunately there is only one set of batteries at this point so its
fly...wait...wait...wait...fly...wait....wait.

George was originally going to try to get static feedback on Friday to enable a heads
up on a reality check of what he created vs. what he intended to replicate. Trees that
grow in the scratch build forest tend to hide issues after things get to growing on the
building board.

George was beat on by Skip Mast and Steve Sauger as they peer'd over his shoulders
since this began three plus years ago. Its my guess its going to be extremely accurate.
George's work has been above 98.0000 with only one exception I can recall in 12yrs.

I'll create a new thread when I get information.

Thanks again for everyone's feedback on the 95 legs.

FliteMetal

You mean there's a Tu-95 that flies at Bomber Field? Wow, imagine that...small world.
Wonder if it could possibly look like this one..................

That's OK Donny, they don't understand that you live in Austin and fly at the rock pile...ARCS.
You're invited to attend the 20th anniversary B-17 Gathering & Scale Big Bird Fly-In Sept. 19, 20, 21.
We've been hearing rumors the giant B-36 in Fort Worth will attend. That would be a sight with Mac's
B-29 and the freshly refurb'd Tu-95. [link=http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_7821252/tm.htm]20th Anniversary Details[/link]

FliteMetal

This is George's bear cub....contra rotating carbon fiber props and all. Its only at 10fps but gives a good presentation of the wing droop mechanism, and all those wonderful geegaws found on George's other Flite-Metal poster children. More when he gets to Detroit after 3 days in Muncie. Enjoy: [link=http://www.rcuvideos.com/item/NFB3DZL1X3X2T2NS/received]Maiorana's Tu-95 Baby Bear[/link]

The smaller Bear's scale gear in its infancy is seen below in sequnce shots. The 21' new Tu-95 gear will function in this same manner. Enjoy watching the sequence by opening the first image on the left then press the right arrow at image bottom left in enlarged frame to put sequence into motion...keep clicking when next image in sequence appears

geardaddy

My Feedback: (27)

Have made some big gears in the past and would consider the Bear retract project.

FliteMetal

Baby Bear flew flawlessly. Dave remarked that it didn't even need triming.
After four flights the trims were exactly where George set them at neutral
when they started out on Friday evening.
[link=http://004edc4.netsolhost.com/FliteMetalimages/Customers/George%20Tu-95/Tu-95%20Second%20Flight.wmv]Tu-95 Second Flight Video[/link]
[link=http://www.rcuvideos.com/video/Russian-Bear-model-mov]Initial Tu-95 Taxi & Turn Test[/link]

SunShyne

My Feedback: (68)

nice video thanks for sharing

Props4ever

Congratulations on the maiden of your TU-95 George, she flew scale and looked as it's real TU95 flying in US skies!!...There is no way one could say it's a model unless they know it's a model at the pictures. Excellent job done my friend. Hopefully one day my Connie will grace Canadian skies the same way your Bear did...

FliteMetal

I can state with relative certainty I now have Tu-95 legs for the Don Smith design. Of course this doesn't magically appear out of thin air. The resulting gear are the result of data provided by George Maiorana. I beleive everyone will agree these are as close to the real deal as one can get without having to have the 1:1 and a ruler.

I have been blessed in collecting well over 670 meg of 1:1, model images, and data over the last four plus years. This is now being incorporated into a CAD designed Tu-95 mains and nose gear. Anyone familiar with the Tu-95 Bear's gear knows it has articulated mains which mandate replication to simply get them into the airframe.

Below is the original Maiorana designed Tu-95 retract prototype. As you can see in these early stage mechanics it functions very well. Its this articulation which must be replicated to permit the gear to function properly in the Don Smith design. Obviously the gear is a great deal larger and must be re-engineered to eliminate as much weight as possible. Enjoy a peek into the world of George Maiorana:[link=http://004edc4.netsolhost.com/Tu-95 Focus/Tu-95 Gear/Tu-95 Proto Gear.wmv]Click To View Tu-95 Retract Video[/link] And yes, the angle of the gear when it is down and locked is scale

Given the success of redesigning the above gear set to fit the requirements of the Don Smith Tu-95 design...an announcement will be made within this thread and on other web sites as well. Inquiries should be directed to [email protected] in the near term. While there have always been people interested in building the Smith Tu-95 this is the one obstacle preventing their beginning a project. With the readily available laser cut wood and the few fiber glass parts which are available this gear will permit them to more confidently begin building the 202" wing span Don Smith designed Tu-95.

dhal22

very impressive plane.

david

Lymkin

Can't wait to see the new retracts!!!

In the meantime, if anyone is interested in Tupolev aircraft I found this 242 page PDF that you might enjoy!

[link=http://d.scribd.com/docs/24fvx9hmjhnjf29klpt7.pdf]Tupolev - The Man and His Aircraft[/link]