Aluminum Gear

[Terry]

At the risk of being blasphemous, has any one considered an aluminum landing gear such as the Grove Aircraft Aluminum Landing Gear? It would seem that properly executed it could be put on a 0 deg angle at cruise and eliminate any gear creep or brake heat problems.

[Kent Ashton]

It's probably not tall enough. The EZs need tall gear so the prop clears during rotation and landing. And then there is the question of how to mount it . . .

[TMann]

Tony is building aluminum gear

I'm not familiar with the grove gear you speak of.

 

Myself, I'm going the Infinity retracts route.

[Lynn Erickson]

At the risk of being blasphemous, has any one considered an aluminum landing gear such as the Grove Aircraft Aluminum Landing Gear? It would seem that properly executed it could be put on a 0 deg angle at cruise and eliminate any gear creep or brake heat problems.

I know two ezes that are on aluminum and the gear legs were build by grove. they seem to work just fine. Grove can make them custom to fit any aircraft. if i was to do it over I would go aluminum for sure.

[Lynn Erickson]

Tony is building aluminum gear

I'm not familiar with the grove gear you speak of.

 

Myself, I'm going the Infinity retracts route.

I believe tony is building the stock berkut gear which is a carbon gear leg with aluminum pieces bonded on each end. one for gear pivot and retract linkage attachment and one on the other for axle attachment. same type construction as the long eze nose gear.

[Terry]

I know two ezes that are on aluminum and the gear legs were build by grove. they seem to work just fine. Grove can make them custom to fit any aircraft. if i was to do it over I would go aluminum for sure.

 

It would be interesting to see how they mounted the gear. I have some ideas on how but it is always interesting to see others ideas. Do you know these people? Can they be contacted?

[mak790]

I believe Tony is building the stock berkut gear which is a carbon gear leg with aluminum pieces bonded on each end.

I believe you are right here is a part from Tony's post.

 

The gear legs are solid carbon fiber. The gear legs where never clamped to the upper gear and lower talon they are potted in ly505 resin. which is now no longer used either. The new gear are rapped in fiberglass at the top of the leg and autoclaved then machined to the proper dimension. the gear are then pressed and bolted into the upper gear legs

http://www.canardzone.com/forum/showthread.php?t=2960&page=15

 

Mak

[CFernandez]

Looking at the Grove site it looks like the gear is going to weigh more than the glass gear. The geometry looks a different also. The aluminum gear would come straight out of the gear well, with the axles approx. 9 inches behind the plans position. Interesting thought.

[Bruce]

I don't remember the previous post but I saved a picture, you could use the gear that's being used on some of the current SQ2000's. It has the break line inside the gear, it's cut and formed then heat treaded, it's 8 feet wide, attaches to the wing spar and can be purchased for "only $3,000". Stan doesn't see any reason why it wouldn't work on a Cozy MKIV. It does offer some advantages but a couple thousand dollars worth of difference, it seems pretty costly for an aluminum gear leg. Here's a picture from the other post on this forum.

 

Bruce

[Phil Kriley]

There were some pictures posted recently about a repair that was done on a Cozy (or some other canard) where the original glass bow main gear had been damaged by heat. The fix was to install aluminum legs that attached to the fiberglass bow. It had the attachment points for the wheels, brakes and wheel pants - in fact, the wheel pants covered the aluminum parts, so it looked like a regular Cozy fiberglass bow.

 

I was just wondering - why not put those things on in the first place - eliminating all the cutting and jigging of the fiberglass bow, and eliminating the angst of heat damage to the fiberglass?

 

Any reason NOT to do this? I've finished my main gear except that I have not bought the brakes or wheels - just the axels. I figured that I didn't want my brakes sitting around for the next 5 years gathering dust and rust...

[Edge 513]

Nat has gone on record that the CozyIV gear hoop is the same one that was used for the Defiant...which is as he said, "more than adequate as the Cozy is a much lighter aircraft". There have only been a few instances [like JohnS.]where a bow has been deformed.

It is not a common-"gotta change that deficiency in the airplane" kinda thing. Gear hoops are not noodling left and right.

[Aiman]

I remember someone at RR this last year dropping it in nice and hard, and deforming their gear, I think.

[dpaton]

I remember someone at RR this last year dropping it in nice and hard, and deforming their gear, I think.

I thought that was a cracked nose gear strut?

[TMann]

I was thinking this was another incident involving excessive heat buildup do to braking.

(I was not there.)

[Aiman]

Where can i get me a set of these...

 

 

[Phil Kriley]

I was thinking this was another incident involving excessive heat buildup do to braking.

(I was not there.)

That's the incident I was referring to. The main gear bow was damaged due to excessive heat, and was repaired using aluminum "booties". The booties sounded like a good idea to me to use in the first place.

[dpaton]

I was thinking this was another incident involving excessive heat buildup do to braking.

(I was not there.)

The one I remember (from RR2006) was that someone landed with the brakes on and cracked a nose strut. I wasn't at RR07, so I can't comment on that one.

[TMann]

Yeah, heat and glass seems to be a bad combo.

I'm going with the aluminum gear like Waiter has.

[tonyslongez]

Sorry to butt in. I just love landing gear discussions. I talked with Robbie Grove several months ago about gear for the Long Ez. If I had a problem getting the gear legs for the Berkut I was going to order a set of alluminum gear. I think the alluminum would look good and would solve the heat issue from heavy breaking. The alluminum is quite a bit stiffer than the glass so make sure you land like a butterfly. Maybe we could take a que from the berkut and make lower talons. The only thing about the long Ez bow is, it has creep