tonyslongez

I couldn't seem to load the pics in my last post. Maybe this one will work.

Waiter Here is what I plan to use. This is a sealed electrohydraulic unit. These are from outboard transum lifts that push/pull 7500 ln/lbs2. I have the gauge that indicates up and down. If you know anything about boats these actuators are very impressive and they are water proof, no hydraulic plumbing to deal with, just connect the hot and ground to the Battery and away you go. I talked to the manufacturer and the gentleman said the actuator was good for 100,000 cycles. I forgot to ask him about max current draw. I think he said to use a 20amp fuse. I can call and ask again to verify. The emergency proceedure is easy with this actuator. The actuator has a preassure relief screw on the front that if turned 90deg, the piston ram is no longer engaged by the fluid allowing it to move very freely. This relief bolt will be replace with a ball valve and the valve can be controlled from the cockpit. Once the emergency proceedure has been started the preassure holding the gear in the up position is realesed and the gear gravity fall into a semi down position a small johnson bar is used to complete the gear extension. So, to answere all your questions Waiter, and figure out how to best incoporate your controller into this design, we will definately have to talk on the phone. it may take me days to type it all out. I'll e-mail you with my number. Tony

Steve Sorry, about the turn around time for your gear. If my gear perform as well as I hope they will, I think these will be the way to go. they are much easier to machine, and they are almost a bolt and go setup. I'm not going to be the one to produce them, but I will have the drawings available if someone wants to send them to a machine shop and have a set made. Tony<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< Waiter Yes I would definately be interested in using your controller. Tony

Here are some pics of the newly designed actuator and side plate. After much debate with my engineering buddies:irked:. I was forced into a new design. (Apparently the guy that has been designing landing gear for the last 25 yrs was right).. I thru out the last design, which you can see in the earlier renderings. (The trunion for that design is now a very nice boat anchor) . What I did is exactly what I didn't want to do the first time around, that was to model the gear after the Cessna 210 or 172RG. After several sleepless nights and many hours of stress analysis in solid works. I have settled on this design. (much to the delight of my friends). I took what I believe to be the best features of the retracts designed for three different aircraft based on relatively the same gear geometry and kinematics. Those aircraft are the lancairIV, cessna 210, and 172RG. These three types of landing gear have the same basic parts design. As I progress forward with the gear layout, I will keep posting my results. However! I will not be posting very many pics on the install. These landing gear have cost me alot of money and time, to just give away my design good or bad will not benefit me and may injure someone else, and I certainly don't want that. If after several hundred hours the design proves to hold up, I will be more than happy to share what I know. (you guys know that)

Mike My apologies. I thought I was reading retrofiting cozy wings and canard to the Long Ez. I'll shut up now! Tony

I have a question. Is the landing gear the same? I think a useful load variable is what the landing gear can handle. I may be wrong. I had an engineer buddy of mine tell me that the Long Ez useful load was governed almost entirely by the landing gears abililty to absorb the higher load, the spar and wings are very capable of handling higher loads, but it's the landing gear that is the determining factor. You can fly a house aorund with the right landing gear on the bottom

I talked to John about his canopy hinges. I explained that the hinge that I drew was more rounded than his. John tells me that the hinge that I drew was the more recent hinge for the Berkut canopy. With that, this hinge can be built for use with the Berkut style canopy. John tells me that this hinge is a cast piece. I'm going to draw a hinge that I think may be used for the berkut style canopys, that'll be a bit easier to make.What I think is important here is the geometry of the hinge. I might be able to make this hinge out of 2 or 3 pieces that will be easy to machine. Tony

Zies8 Thank you. I couldn't agree more. Tony

Got em Thanks Guys I really appreciate that. I'm burning these to CD right now. BTW check out the canopy and doors section of the forum I now have a cad drawing of the Berkut hinges if anyone needs those. I'm still installing sofware on the computer. I have to install my Adobe Pro to turn the drawings into PDF's should be able to that tonight Thanks again Tony

Here Berkut canopy hinge drawing was provided by --D--. I could not verify what version this hinge is from the drawing, by that I mean. It "LOOKS" different than the one my buddy John A. has on his Berkut. that is not to say that this hinge isn't a berkut hinge, only that John's hinges, I thought, where slightly easier to build. John and Dave R. are very close. John mentioned to me that "Dave R. had given him a new hinge that he had been working on" or something like that. If I remember correctly:scared: the geometry of the hinge is the same it just seemed a little more square than radiused. I'll try to get the hinge from John this week and see what the difference is. I believe it had something to do with allowing the canopy to open up more. email me for the Cad file. I still have to install my Adobe creator as I'm recovering my computer from a failed hard drive. Tony

D Cad files are done. I will post them in the canopy and hinges section of the forum this way we can get out of the Marketplace section. I'll do them in 3d as well Tony

O.K. Here is the deal my computer has officially died. My hard drive went out after 7 long years of service. If anyone has the DXF or DWG files I have sent out could you please e-mail me a copy, I really don't want to draw those again. Unfortunatelly those where not backed up files. Shame on me!. any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks Tony tonyslongez@cox.net

Sorry I've been away for a while. I'll draw these tonight and post the cad files, so everyone can have them. DXF, PDF, DWG. I'll put all three up there. My buddy John offered to take his berkut canopy hinge off of his airplane so I could draw it up into cad maybe more accurately than this drawing. I'll do what I can with this one, then I'll take Johns and make any revisions that may need to be done. By the way john has the full plans and drawings of the berkut so any other parts (with in reason) I can recreat in cad format. Tony

1) No john I doubt your dense at all. It's a simple over center lock really, here are some pics that may help clear it up for you. The ball stud is attached to the canopy when the canopy is closed you simply rotate the handle. The stem of the ball stud which is attached to the canopy is the only part of the stud protruding thru the lock. You cant pull the ball thru the stem slot. 2) I did trim that yes but I didn't use peel ply on the edges. I'll go back and knock them down with some sand paper later. 3) I don't think so my fuselage is easily as wide as Jonh's Berkut and that area of the longeron is the same width as his when I got in the berkut you barely notice the longerons of course the berkut longerons are that wide all the way to the firewall. Dave R. made a really nice molded piece of composite that you can install weather stripping into.

Here is the lock area of the longeron with 4 plys of bid. You can see the pour foam that I used to contour the area around the longeron doubler. the locks are now finished and ready to be installed Tony

My buddy John Andrejeski has his Berkut here in Las Vegas. John let me borrow his canopy latch to duplicate. Pretty neat the way Dave R. used these latches. I had to modify my longeron slightly but well worth the extra effort. I'm talking to a machine shop right now to make these latches in quantitiy, it took me about 2hrs each to make. I had to make the handles too. Next up will be the canopy hinges. From what I understand Dave will not make these latches any longer when he was making them he charged 65$ a pair without the longeron hole inserts. If you'll notice in the pic I haven't milled for the ball stud yet. I just ordered the ball studs and ball end mill from McMaster Carr. I'll have them completed by the end of the week. Notice the two slots for the O-Rings this is to keep the assembly water tight. I need to back fill the longeron area with pour foam and sand everything to a nice pleasing shape. I'll lay the hole area up with 4 plys of bid. The first 2 Pics are the original Berkut canopy latch, the next two are the copys. I used 7079 bar stock for the lock and 60661 on the handle they are now polished and ready to be anodized. I have included pics of the longeron as well.

Dbradford Yeah, I think that is what most guys do anyway with the shorter nosed Long Ez's. Juat make sure you do a new W&B sheet you won't be adding alot of nose weight but it will affect your C of G. Tony

I too would like a copy of those Cad files. I can import them into Rhino and capture them as a JPG and post them so everyone can see. If that is O.K. Tony

Bruce Glad you like the drawings. I'm still having a time learning all the new stuff Rhino can do. I'm still importing some pieces of the airplane into Rhino from Auto-Cad. I really like drawing in A-Cad becasue I'm more familliar with the drawing enviorment. Rhino is by far a more powerful program, not as powerful as say solid works but I think it is a little more user friendly than solid works. That's my next program to learn. Anyway I'll keep em coming time permitting so everyone can see what I'm up to. As far as the bag pod. I think it looks really cool this way. I do like the idea of making it a little more conforming to the scoop. Certainly will give me a little more room for another pair of the old ladies high heels. I'm not sure if there is a clearence issue or not. I'll have to measure the belly at full gear deflection with a flat tire and see how much room I have Tony

Thats funny! Jon Thats just for clothes. It was just a fun idea I thru in at the last minute. I like this over the wing pods. Tony

Here are a couple of renderings of my airplane. The gear are almost complete and ready to install. pictures of that will be posted shortly. Tony

Excellent! I will do the wrap on the outside as well. Nice job deciphering what I was asking you. I'm glad your standing. yea I did miss you guys at Oshkosh this year the T.V. show has kept me way to busy to even think about Osh this year. We have two more shows we have been approached to do. I'll try to meet up with you next year. My partner and I have been talking about doing a "Homebuilt Home Show" for the DIY network. That'll be fun We'll have to get you on camera Marc. Tony

Here are the new NG30 layed up in carbon and fiberglass. Marc Z. are you still out there? If you can stand to help me figure something out I would appreciate it. It involves that torsional issue we talked about. What I want to do is lay the nose up per plans 2ply bid then I want to lay say 12"in wide Uni Carbon strip from the right side of the fuselage up over the top of the nose around the tip back over the top finishing up on the other side of the fuselage like a basket weave. Now the Ng30 will be joined to the nose on all 4 sides from the inside. Can that work? I think it will make the whole inside of the nose one giant bulkhead. Tony

Hey Lynn I haven't heard of anyone doing that .I don't think I stretched mine at all but it seems like a doable mod without to much fuss. Tony

Magnum I'll be glad to e-mail you those e-mail me at tonyslongez@cox.net I'll send them over. 702-858-9380 "just in case" Tony