wonwinglo
SMF Supporter
- Joined
- Apr 18, 2004
- Messages
- 6,754
- Points
- 113
- First Name
- Barry
One of the biggest problems on aircraft such as the undercarriage on types like the Boeing Stearman PT-17 etc is a successful way of making a workable cantilever undercarriage,get it wrong and you will wipe off the gear on the first heavy landing,however there is a way that just requires a bit of thought before incorporating into your model however it does work well,it entails making the main legs to swing,on a full size aircraft the landing load is near vertical,however on our models the forces are rearward,hence any load needs to be dampened in that direction.
To start we need to firmly anchor the main legs in say brass tubed hardwood block,you could easily achieve this by splitting the undercarriage and joining by silver soldering with brass tube ( Greyhead has already showed us how to go about successfuly silver soldering in a past tutorial ) next we need somewhere at the upper part of the undercarriage legs to anchor the spring/heavy duty rubber band,once again small piano wire hooks can be created here,the springing can be taken forward and hidden into the fuselage,it just needs to take the shock nothing else,in effect the legs pivot and they are located into a slot in the lower of the fuselage,at the rear of that slot cut pieces of rubber from ordinary pencil erasers and cyno into the rear of the cut out,this acts as a rebound if the undercarriage should over-travel,a bit of pre planning should sort the layout for your particular model,this idea has been tried and tested on two Stearmans and a Fiat CR.32 and in both cases gave good service.
There are variations on this idea but it will give you food for thought.
To start we need to firmly anchor the main legs in say brass tubed hardwood block,you could easily achieve this by splitting the undercarriage and joining by silver soldering with brass tube ( Greyhead has already showed us how to go about successfuly silver soldering in a past tutorial ) next we need somewhere at the upper part of the undercarriage legs to anchor the spring/heavy duty rubber band,once again small piano wire hooks can be created here,the springing can be taken forward and hidden into the fuselage,it just needs to take the shock nothing else,in effect the legs pivot and they are located into a slot in the lower of the fuselage,at the rear of that slot cut pieces of rubber from ordinary pencil erasers and cyno into the rear of the cut out,this acts as a rebound if the undercarriage should over-travel,a bit of pre planning should sort the layout for your particular model,this idea has been tried and tested on two Stearmans and a Fiat CR.32 and in both cases gave good service.
There are variations on this idea but it will give you food for thought.