Big mouth / R&D and float water rudders as well

[Wayne G. O'Shea]

Well as if I didn't have enough to do I had to open my big mouth that I
could also make the gear struts with 12" of spring and be convertible back
and forth to 6" as well!

Of course in order to have the surety of getting the unloaded length correct
I had to build a set for my own airplane to be certain I knew what I was
doing. Now of course since the 12" springs have double the movement per
given load my gear legs will be moving through twice the angle that they
usually do and of course come Spring I will have to update my gear stubs to
Gordon Mohr's design as well, just to add to the" tado" list some more!!
Once I've gone that far I'll probably have to upgrade the wheels to some
Cleveland's and add a set of 31" radial bushwheels or something stupid to
put the struts to work!! It just never ends does it?!?!

That all said I have the prototypes made and hanging from hooks, waiting for
the fresh Tremclad to harden up on them. I hope to have them installed
sometime tomorrow and, if all is well, to be able to fly down to Brampton on
them Sunday. Weather permitting of course. Calling for sunny at Brampton,
but doesn't look promising up here with 60% chance of snow.

I have posted a picture of them hanging to dry, to the archives.

FWIW the finished weight on these is 13 lbs/pair. The 6" ones weigh in at
9lbs/pair. The "Cessna style" gear leafs weigh in at 20lbs/pair for the legs
only. The plates required to strengthen the carrythrough weigh by
measurement calculations of width/thickness at about 4 times what the entire
bungee style gear legs system does, so using even these 12" compression
spring struts still brings the empty weight in at a conservative savings of
at least 10 lbs lighter than the leaf gear configuration.

I have also posted two pictures of the springs I use on the water rudder
returns. The bungees will rot in a week or two, and are useless. I use a
steel spring here as well (maybe I just hate bungees I guess!!) to pull the
rudder down. The spring I use is from Canadian Tire Pt # 61-1514-6 It is a 2
5/8" x 1/2" spring but you have to cut about 11 or 12 coils off it and bend
up a new attach loop 90* to the opposite end to make it fit the bolts and be
the right length. Do this from the start before you put your floats in the
water. You'll never need to touch them again, just like the compression
spring struts instead of bungees on the wheel gear!

Cheers,
Wayne





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