(no subject)
For months, and months, the back burner of my brain has been trying to figure out and decide what kind of landing gear spring system I should have. Tonight, I've finally figured it out. Yay!
I'll basically copy from a Hatz Biplane. Trust me, it was not easy finding info on how these work, or even enf pictures to figure it out. But I did finally find enf to get it, and it is fairly clever.
Jim would be a bit disappointed, as he felt I should do his trick design of paired oil and gas (N2) cylinders. His design is fabulous, but I don't have the patience or equipment to build it and risk the unknowns and do-overs.
December's Sport Aviation had a cover photo of a homebuilt that is basically a kit SuperCub with TriPacer wings. More to the point for me, was that it showed coil spring landing gear that look like the other option I'm after.
So a couple evenings ago I googled enf to find the Sport Aviation guy, Kinny, and was even lucky enf that he emailed me back. Turns out, the gear he used on his kit is taken from a Hatz Biplane. I traded a few emails with Kinney, and moved on to scouring around for pictures or drawings of Hatz landing gear. Kinney's emails were short, and poorly worded at best, and things were really only getting more confusing.
Finally, I found a good enf picture from a Hatz builder's web site:
From Murphy Build Winter 2010
What they look like installed on a Hatz
The consternating but trick thing about the spring gear design is how it uses springs in compression for strut members that are in tension. Here's how, not that you asked: In the Hatz (first picture, above), the strut from the top slides over the strut from the bottom. The bolt in the top spring retainer (hat shape) has a through hole in the inner sleeve and rides length-wise in a slot in the outer sleeve. Opposite hole and slot (inside and outside sleeve) on the bottom.
I have also found a spring manufacturer in Dixon, and crazy enf, he's intrigued enf to make springs for me that would be superior, such as being a bit longer and/or having a variable force rate. Short of that, the one thing good from Kinney is that I can buy the springs per se straight from AC Spruce ($94).
Onward!
I'll basically copy from a Hatz Biplane. Trust me, it was not easy finding info on how these work, or even enf pictures to figure it out. But I did finally find enf to get it, and it is fairly clever.
Jim would be a bit disappointed, as he felt I should do his trick design of paired oil and gas (N2) cylinders. His design is fabulous, but I don't have the patience or equipment to build it and risk the unknowns and do-overs.
December's Sport Aviation had a cover photo of a homebuilt that is basically a kit SuperCub with TriPacer wings. More to the point for me, was that it showed coil spring landing gear that look like the other option I'm after.
So a couple evenings ago I googled enf to find the Sport Aviation guy, Kinny, and was even lucky enf that he emailed me back. Turns out, the gear he used on his kit is taken from a Hatz Biplane. I traded a few emails with Kinney, and moved on to scouring around for pictures or drawings of Hatz landing gear. Kinney's emails were short, and poorly worded at best, and things were really only getting more confusing.
Finally, I found a good enf picture from a Hatz builder's web site:
From Murphy Build Winter 2010
What they look like installed on a Hatz
The consternating but trick thing about the spring gear design is how it uses springs in compression for strut members that are in tension. Here's how, not that you asked: In the Hatz (first picture, above), the strut from the top slides over the strut from the bottom. The bolt in the top spring retainer (hat shape) has a through hole in the inner sleeve and rides length-wise in a slot in the outer sleeve. Opposite hole and slot (inside and outside sleeve) on the bottom.
I have also found a spring manufacturer in Dixon, and crazy enf, he's intrigued enf to make springs for me that would be superior, such as being a bit longer and/or having a variable force rate. Short of that, the one thing good from Kinney is that I can buy the springs per se straight from AC Spruce ($94).
Onward!