I'm about to start building a Sig Smith Miniplane. I've never been fond of wire landing gear and since I will be flying off of some pretty rough surfaces, I'd like to convert it to use typical aluminum gear. I don't have the kit yet so could someone tell me the width of the bottom of the fuse just forward of the wing saddle? Of better yet, recommend a gear form another kit that works well with this plane. I'm thinking maybe a 4* 40 might work well since they are kind of soft and would absorb some of the shock of the rough surface I'll be flying from.

Any other advice would of course be welcome.

Thanks
Andy

The width is 4" after the lower wing. The problem is that the plane wants to tip forward on the landing with the landing gear just forward of the leading edge of the top wing. You only have 3 1/2" to work with before the cowl. I hope the pictures show it to you. Good luck it is a great plane.

I replaced the wire blocks on the fuse with 1/4" ply (about a 2" section), and bolted on a Hangar-9 .40-sized gear with blind nuts in the fuse. It looks great, raises the nose slightly, is a piece of cake to remove/install, and puts the wheels slightly ahead of what's shown on the plans. And it looks great. The platform is a little narrower than the fuse, but too narrow looks much better than too wide. I can take a picture and post it when I get home.

Yep, after the first couple of bounced landings, the stock wire wood fairings were cracked and looked horrible.

Did similar to nickj. Replaced the grooved landing gear blocks with 1/4" ply and mounted the aluminum gear with blind nuts.

I don't remember which gear number I used but take the main wire piece with you to the hobby shop and hold it up against the gear packages and get one that is close.

Don

Picture of my Mini with Hangar-9 aluminum gear

Very nice. I'll have to dig around and try to find a pic of mine.

Don

Wow Nick, that's a great looking Mini! Thanks for posting it. To me, the aluminum gear adds to the good looks of the mini. I know it isn't scale but who cares if your aren't competing. Great paint job too. Can you tell us what covering and paint you used? I'm getting aquainted with Solartex and Nelsons water based paint. So far so good.

Thanks again
Andy

I used flat Monokote and Perfect camo paint for the cowl/gear/struts. As you can see, it's not a match. But I was happy with the result. Bottom of wings, stab, and fuse are flat gray Monokote. The rudder is regular shiny Monokote, in red, white, and blue. I used Solartex on a Cub once--great stuff. You can't beat a fabric covering job on a plane like this.

I've never competed in a scale competition, but from what I hear, you supply the documentation on the plane. The DSA-1's a homebuilt aircraft. It's probably seen all sorts of different landing gear mods. So it wouldn't necessarily be a scale violation to go with the aluminum gear.