pgatour2b

Just finished building this beautiful plane. I've heard about the retracts being too flimbsy. Can anyone tell me if putting robo struts with oleos will do the job? . I wanted to cut the stock retract right above the spring, and just attach the robart strut to the existing wire. Thanks for the reply

Steve Collins

My Feedback: (8)

For not much more than the price of a pair of Robostruts, you can have a set of Robart 605HD pneumatic retracts. These are far superior to the mechanical ones that come with the plane. The 605HD has a thicker wire strut as well. These are the retracts I used in mine.

iceben

Steve,

Can you describe what's involved with installing these, especially modifying the bottom of the wing and the wheel well plastic? Can you post a photo of the bottom of the wing?

Thanks, iceben

warks62

My Feedback: (140)

I have a Hanger 9 P-51 and I removed the strut from the retract, bought a length of 5/32" piano wire from my local hobby and bent a 90 degree at one end for the wheel cut it to the correct length with no spring at all. The strut is so long on the plane that it still as spring to it without adding coils at the top. I then took a 5/32" aluminum tube and added it to the wire to give it a nice look. Then I added a 3/16" tube over that to give it a more beefy look. It made taxis and landing like it should be. I have read about the Robert retracts and that they work great but I did all this for less than $6.00 so I liked it better. I never had a problem with the retracts themselves just the strut.

quint-rcu

My Feedback: (24)

If you do a search on Hangar-9 P-51 you will find a number of threads that list the required mods to the landing gear. If you want to keep the H-9 units, they will work very well - WITH MODS. [ul][*] Drill the units out to 3/16" and bend a set of 3/16" struts[*] Check for slop with the gears down and if any is found, shim the stop with a sliver of thin brass or alum.[*] Place a thin plywood shim under the rear mounting rail to 'rake' the gear forward and prevent nose-overs. (If you want to get fancy you can cut 2/3 of the way around the inside of the wheel-well plastic liner with a sharp X-acto to allow the wheels to retract all the way into the wing with the shims in place. - It doesn't show when retracted and the 'cut' is closed when the gear is down.)
[/ul]
It's harder to describe than to do and the modified factory gear has held up for a season + to our rough grass field. In fact I used a set of H-9 P-51 units in my new Staggerwing at 10 lbs (with the mods of course). Sure wish H-9 had done all that to the P-51 and they wouldn't have gotten the bad rep.

quint