Cardinal Landing Gear

Now that I have a Cardinal kit to build, what type of landing gear would be best to use? Wire gear, aluminium, CG (weight saving and strength)?

I used the wire gear from the kit. hardwood plug in the fuse between the doublers and brass bushing over wire.
seems to work OK.

others will tell you to replace it with Aluminium....up to you

Winfred makes carbon fiber gear for a full bodied aeroplane. Mike Pratt Ultra Hobbies offer fiber gear for profiles, I believe.

See Ya

Well Kirk,

Don't know if you'd want to go this far but Windy sell some pretty good carbon fiber units that would work well. That would save you some weight and if you use Noel's ideas for axels that would save some too. Then you could always hollow out the fuse and plank with something light and stiff. Hmmm, that may be going a little too far though?

I think you might be.....the Cardinal flies extremely well STOCK out of the box......why muck around with it?????

build it, fly it, love it.

I would recommend fixed gear. Even though you are an accomplished pilot, this is a different type of flying from what you are used to doing. Retracts were mandatory in RC, but not here. I don't think you will get too many "Impression" points with retracts in a profile.

Plus, I don't even want to calculate the cost of tearing down that nice new LA 46 if you land gear up.

Now that we have convinced you to use fixed gear, it doesn't really matter. Carbon fiber looks cool, but I have some great aluminum gear from Tom Dixon that's just as light. It's your choice. It only takes more money

Ron King

I also used the wire gear on my kit, works fine. Follow the instructions with the kit and it works fine except the cutouts in the doublers aren't too attractive. If your kit has the quality wood mine had you'll have no problem with the plane coming out less than 3 lbs.