landing gear in floats
 

Testing the theory of putting retractable landing in floats, is it possible?

It has been done
 

Very easy to do. I scratch built mine.
All you need is a few scraps of aluminum sheet (.080 or thicker) some tin snips a drill and a set of floats that you can mount the wheels in.
I copied full size retracts and built a little box for the main gear to go up inside the floats. Even had little gear doors that closed over the wheels for better water performance.
the nose gear retracted up to form the front of the float.
Retraction was done with a Futaba retract servo and a few feet of flex cable.
Sometimes I forgot to put the wheels down when I was land flying. Only forgot to put them up once when I was on the water.

Splash, trip.....sploosh! :p

I can give you more details if you are interested.

Peter

floats with retractable landing gear
 

Thanx Climate for the info. If you have the time, would enjoy a few more details. :)

landing gear in floats
 

Climate,
I would also like more info. I have been interested in an amphib for quite a while.

Amphibians
 

What I did was make a foam cored float just like our current Sporty 40 kit. I added a plywood box just behind the step that was big enough to hold 2.25” Du-bro wheels.
The nose wheel was a 1.25” wheel, and was mounted on a plywood plate just back from the bow of the float.

I have attached drawings of the full size aircraft retracts for you to get the idea.
The hydraulics were omitted and the wheels were actuated by a retract servo mounted in one of the floats using flex cable.

Enjoy.

http://www.climateboatworks.com/pict...withwheels.gif
http://www.climateboatworks.com/pict...oseretract.jpg
http://www.climateboatworks.com/pict...ainretract.jpg

Peter.

landing gear in floats
 

Climate thank you for the intel, it was much appreciated.

Jason.

steering
 

I just want to know how do you put the steering linkage on the nose gear?? Did you have pics of your float? I'm very interressed to put amphibian float on my Beaver. My Beaver plan is now finish at 99% and the next step is to make the float plan !!

landing gear in floats
 

I've toyed with this idea also,Would love to be able to taxi the plane into and out of the water??

Did you have steering ?

I think one less complicated way would be to use variable braking on the main wheels instead of stering linkage for the fronts?

Steering????
 

No steering on floats my friend. The front wheels caster.
If you put steering on a set of floats, you would trip the aircraft on 99% of all tera firma landings.
The real thing steers with brakes and rudder input.
Most RC aircraft have enough rudder input that brakes are not needed.
I could turn my old Goldberg eagle on about 6 foot circles with the floats. That was better than with the nose wheel.
One thing to remember is that it takes practice to get it just right.
Castering wheels are a bit slow to start, and come out of a turn the same way. Once in a turn though, they are very nimble.
Putting a turning limiter on the front wheels is a good idea. This keeps them from turning far enough to cause the plane to trip if they are full over.

Look at the drawings I posted earlier. They will explain how it all works prety well.

Peter

Steering
 

No steering can work with a small aircraft, but I don't know if it work on a big plane (My Beaver will have 103" of WS). My idea is to put brake on the main wheel like the real one.
I will try this idea probably this summer :p

landing gear in floats
 

Thanks for the info, Peter. I figured that wheels-in-floats would have ground handling like a shopping cart.

I'm building a 1:6 Beaver and wheels would be nice to taxi into the water, if not use for actual landings.