After suffering yet another landing gear breakage from a less than gentle
landing. I decided to make my own. I spent alot of time looking for just the
right material. This ranged from aluminium flat stock, to alum. tubing doubled
up, to what I finally think is just the right stuff. For the struts I used 1/4''
solid aluminium rod from Lowes or Home Depot or Sears hardware. I can't remember
which. Each strut is 10'' long and was bent in a vice with two bends per curve,
in other words 4 little bitty bends per strut. The angle is about 50 degrees for
down leg of strut. Holes were drilled and tapped at the end of each strut leg. I
used 4-40 size threads
To attach the struts to the frame I used a 22mm long 1/4' rod that I drilled
and tapped the ends of, for the frame mounting screws. I also drilled a hole
perpendicular for attaching to the strut. Using a Dremel with a 1/4" sanding
drum, gives the bottom of the strut a nice convex ( or is that concave ?
)surface to mate with the skid nicely. After all parts were completed I used
shrink tubing to cover each piece. Then fastened all together. You will notice
there is a "step" on the skid for the pilot to enter the cockpit. Trust me, this
was not planned, but rather a clever way to utilize the excess shrink tubing :-)
. A little CA holds it fine. Another benefit of shrink tubing is it helps to
hold everything together, it acts like a tension washer betweenthe various
parts.
Clicking on picture brings up a bigger picture.
Everything you need,- 1/4" solid alum rod , ----Plastic Hangar 5/16" dia. ,
----The hanger piece you need,
I used an old skid for measurement.
Attaching strut to frame. And then to attach the Skid to the Strut.
IMPORTANT: The Struts are at an angle, so you must drill through the Skids with
this angle in mind, also the skids have a left and right side !! I used a piece
of wood to get the spacing for the holes in the skids the correct distances.
Wood spacer for holes -----Frame attachment method -------------Final product
---------------Nice !-----
Note
No trees were harmed in the making of this page.
