Any ideas? I was thinking about it, Dont want to buy any, Just want some ideas about how to make some cheap brakes.

The cheapest brakes going are a real nose-heavy tail-dragger.

A 4-40 rod bent to a 90 hinged to the tail. Take off with to end pointing up, go inverted, that lets the "hook" flip down , land as directed, instant brakes.

duBro made or still makes a nose or main wheel brake that has a small hub that keys into your wheel hub and has a loosely wraped spring that's around the hub and anchored to the gear leg. The spring has a extended portion that a small line attaches to and then that goes to a servo. Servo pulls>spring coils tighter around hub>hub drags> wheel stops. Kinda?! it actually works well and I have 5 of these units NIB for planes that come in hot. Currently all of mine are tail draggers and it's just a bad idea to put it on those. The duBro # is 157.

use a bomb drop setup and drop an anchor.

Here's how it's done:
follow normal landing pattern but on final, come in at about a 40 degree angle and don't flair
It'll slow you down pretty quick lol

Land inverted, the rudder will stop it.

If you don't want to actually actuate them and just something to slow down your roll, you can install a thin piece of fuel tubing between your wheel collar and wheel. This allows the wheel to roll with some resistance thus reducing your roll out.

Hi beavertail,

You can take the main wheels and cant them inward about 2 - 3 degrees. This will work on

either tricycle/taildragger setups. Just make certain that both are set up @ the same, or it will

want to do a lot of ground looping.




Good Flying

THanks alot for those who responded, even jokingly. I get the idea that there arent many shortcuts.

Well one way might be to take the inboard wheel collar and grind it's side so that it is uneven, effectively making it an eccentric, also grind another to mate with the first. Put the two together with the "eccentric" sides together. Now install both on the inboard side of the wheel that is to be braked. Lock the further most inboard collar as usual, and put a washer in between the wheel hub and the "brake assembly" (that you have made). Install the out board collar as usual but adjust clearance so that when you rotate the innermost inboard collar the clearance is diminished thus making a clamping force ultimately applied to the wheel. The method to actuate would be via cable routed along the strut guide by "eyes" soldered to strut. Also the set screw tap, for the collar to be actuated, may be used for a control horn installation similar to what is used for nose wheel steering.

Brake adjustments would be accomplished by moving the outside collar in or out.

Take the gear off and handlaunch the bird-when you land it will not roll very far-just teasing

Take a look at the gear on my HP20 (my avitar). The secret is a loose landing gear bolt on takeoff.

It stopped quick when I landed but I don't really recommend it.

Better pics

He said brakes not breaks.

Is that considered a "4-point" landing?

LOL!
My buddy lost a wheel on his Sukhoi .40 on takeoff a couple of weeks ago.
He enjoyed the flight, but the landing was constantly in the back of his mind.
He ended up coming in a bit hot to keep the tail up and allow use of the rudder, then used aileron to hold the "broken" side up as long as possible, while keeping the heading correct with the rudder.
Actually got down to a decent speed before the tail (and right wing) dropped, and it didn't flip or loop... just slid a couple of feet and spun to the right... engine still running.

For those using the "screw through the wheel and into the gear mount" system popular on small ARFs, check those "axles" regularly. Screws are not really the best material, and if the nuts locking into the gear loosen even slightly (which you won't notice unless they also capture the wheel pants) then you'll have an "axle" rotating in the aluminum gear strut... wearing down. This is what happened to his gear.
A year ago, he had something similar happen to his Global Tequila .40... a wheel pant flipped upside down during flight.

Has your plane got spats? ifso you could hook up a lever inside. You get a peice of metal (or wood) pivot it in the spat and when you drop it touches your wheel, and you have a cheap brake.

If the plane has trike gear, hit full down elevator as soon as all of the wheels are on the ground. You'd be surprised how effective it is, especially on a paved runway_bob

It was actually an oblique landing. The gear turned from 90 deg to 45 on touchdown. I give credit for the landing to DougBoiler91; he is a very experienced flyer and my intructor/coach as well. The wing did not touch the gound till the plane was almost stopped.

The gear bolts are drilled and safety wired now!

Oscar

I've seen brakes made out of small pieces of wood. An arm is fashioned and attached to the landing gear strut so that it pivots and can come in contact with the wheel. THe arm is activated by a servo, or could be attached to one of the existing channels like throttle or elevator. It works quite well.

I usually put way to much motor on planes and they tend to creep at idle so what I did was push the wheel collars up pretty tight on the rims so you just can barely turn the wheel. It will be really tight at first and more throttle is needed for taxiing but it damn sure cuts down on the landing roll speed and distance. I seem to recall having to re-adjust the wheel collars about once a weekend of 2 days of flying. I know this sounds silly but it DOES work and it is damn cheap. Smaller main wheels can help also...I did not beleive it would help but it did...smaller diameter wheels means more area and less roll out.
Also another thing I did when I was gonna show all the newbies how good I was and just kiss the grass with the mains in my Sukhoi, so down on the deck it went ...lower they hollered...LOWER...LOWER THIS TIME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Well the mains kissed the grass alright and proceeded to kiss all the aft section of my plane...my new Y.S. 91 was not new any more...but the plane stopped...for about a month[]

Get some grass seed, plant it at the end of the runway, let it grow really tall, stops the plane ever time. Don't want to wait for the grass to grow, fence posts work well too.

I don't know if this thread was meant to be a joke only, but I would like to offer a real solution. These brakes were offered as a tip in MAN a long time ago, but I expect they could be used today.

gaui, not quite sure by that what it is doing. Looks like it pulls the wire against the tail wheel? If that is the case, in order for it to work, you would have to have the plane slowed down a bit and a lot of elevator to keep the weight on the tail wheel. I would think it would just drag the wheel and make it act as a skid.

Mayb work with enough room, but something like that on the mains would probably slow it down more. It would wear out the side of the tires though.

Dubro had a break system that went on the mains that cost about $4 to $5. I would think if you wanted cheap breaks, you would use that.