Wing mounted aluminum LG legs?????

Has anybody done this? I know of only two stunters with this feature, Hi Johnson's Stuka Stunter (no relation to Leonard & Matt's!) and a pretty Italian stunter in Tom Morris' Classics page Plansbook. I don't like either system. What I'm thinking of doing is to bolt the legs to a piece of hardwood in the center section. A couple of notched plywood half ribs should transfer torque into the structure ok. I figure to have the legs angled either inboard or outboard (more likely) so they'll be able to flex and absorb vertical impact. Maybe a 15 degree angle. What think ye? Steve

As long as you transfer the loads properly to the structure and make the structure strong enough from the gear to the center section, you should be OK. I would want to make any gear removable, however. A removable gear can be repositioned, if necessary, and, if it bends, it can be bent back. It can, also, be lengthened or shortened if found necessary. (Do you ever fly out of tall grass? If so, having a gear that is a little taller is a nice feature).

Just ramblingn thoughts. Let us know how you progress on your idea.

LAST EDITED ON Feb-14-01 AT 10:23 PM (EST)

LAST EDITED ON Feb-14-01 AT 10:21 PM (EST)

Leonard...the legs would absolutely be bolted to the "hard points" in the wing. Probably would start out with them being flush to the surface, eventually might want to fair over the flange, but I doubt it. I would bend the gear with a 75 or 80 deg angle at the wing and a 15 or 10 deg at the wheel, put 3 machine screws through (2 at the LE, one aft, between them?) to bolt each leg to the wing. You could easily rivet or bolt a "LG Door" to the leg, made of thinner aluminum, plywood, abs or epoxyboard. I might just do this on the Brodak Cardinal, if the stock gear is wire. We make Nils mow the grass real short before we will fly with him! Steve