landing gear length

[Drew Dalgleish]

At 09:06 PM 05/10/2009 -0800, you wrote:

Richard, others,
When I was searching for bungee gear I heard from some very happy Murphy
owners with spring gear. They reported it handled pretty rough landings
fine. Everything has its limits obviously. I opted for bungee for the

tear out

concern and the weight as I knew I wanted this long before I bought my
project. The weight difference I recall from the archives and I think MAM

is

22-23 lbs.
I'm stuck on home maintenance for another few weeks and haven't finalized
main gear length. I've seen plenty of comments on people hitting the
tailwheel unintentionally early on attempted 3point landings, thus my

interest

in lengthening. Any comments on this idea? Im thinking about 2 inches.

I know this would mean other customized pieces; drag struts, wishbone
pieces, and some of the gussets, but I'm part way into this anyway and don't
mind.

Also BTW, I don't feel too bad using the bungees over Wayne's die-springs.
Was tempted for Waynes, partly also because they will never need
replacement compared to 8-10year life of the bungees. But I also feel the
bungees will provide dampening, compared to practially no damping of die
springs. This (damping) may be theoretical and not a practical advantage --
I dunno.

If anyone wants some of the other AL stock I mention above, let me know as
I have extra I can sell pretty cheap.
-Ben
496R

Hi Ben I think the landing gear length is pretty good as it is. It's pretty
tough to get the tail down far enough to 3 point my plane without a little
power or extra speed. I have landed tailwheel first but I'm not sure why
you think that's a bad thing. It's a long strech to climb into a rebel 2"
higher would mean many people would need a footstool or step. Longer gear
would mean more weight on the tailwheel when taxiing, probably not a good
thing. Longer gear might increase your chances of nosing over if you hit
something. Longer gear will reduce your visibility over the nose,
increasing your chances of hitting something.

Generally bungees don't move unless you hit really hard. Die springs move
all the time. If your exhaust blows anywhere near the bungees you'll be
very lucky to get much life out of them. And no I'm not on Wayne's payroll.
Drew



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[bransom]

Thanks Drew and Jeff,
Standard length legs and die springs start to sound better. Bigger tires too,
maybe, although I'll operate a lot off pavement and I'm leary of big tires
combined with pavement, Xwind, and my piloting.

I seem to recall several notes in the archives about not being able to get as
slow as the wing would allow before hitting the tail down, possibly hard. I'll
look back through again. If this is an issue, it would be more so with VGs.

WRT die springs, I had been thinking that, like the bungees, they don't see
much of any action except for hard hits. I hope to catch up with Wayne
again on this. Good point about the exhaust too ...hadn't thought of that at
all.
-Ben

Hi Ben I think the landing gear length is pretty good as it is. It's pretty
tough to get the tail down far enough to 3 point my plane without a little
power or extra speed. I have landed tailwheel first but I'm not sure why
you think that's a bad thing. It's a long strech to climb into a rebel 2"
higher would mean many people would need a footstool or step. Longer gear
would mean more weight on the tailwheel when taxiing, probably not a good
thing. Longer gear might increase your chances of nosing over if you hit
something. Longer gear will reduce your visibility over the nose,
increasing your chances of hitting something.

Generally bungees don't move unless you hit really hard. Die springs move
all the time. If your exhaust blows anywhere near the bungees you'll be
very lucky to get much life out of them. And no I'm not on Wayne's payroll.
Drew

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