Wheel pants

[Mikek]

Building my second embryo. Had problems with the first one with the wheel pants breaking/twisting on landing.

First I simply epoxied the wheel,pants to the wire. Next I sandwiched the wire between the wheel pant and a small piece of balsa. Finally, I soldered a small piece of wire at 90 degrees to the landing gear to have more surface area to glue and help keep the wheel pants straight. This added a bit of weight.

Any suggestions for a better way to attach the wheel pants?

[pburress]

My only suggestion is use a flexible glue.  SOBO glue is good to use for this and also for canopies since it dries clear.  If the wheel pant swivels around the gear when it hits something, so be it.  On a hard landing something has to give and as you reinforce and strengthen you may be adding weight which makes the landing even harder!  The best way to avoid landing damage is a very light, well trimmed airplane that comes down gracefully.  But even then, plant stalks can be quite unforgiving.    Another thing is the landing gear- it should be thin wire and flex quite a bit upon landing.  Stiff, unforgiving wire is unnecessary and heavy.

[Mikek]

Thanks! Makes sense to use a more flexible glue and wire. I used 032 wire on the last one. Maybe I’ll try 025.

My first embryo was pretty heavy so that may have been a lot of the problem!

[lincoln]

Just an idea, but maybe you could bend the landing gear wire to go straight down for just a bit before bending it out horizontal for the axle? Then you could glue the pant to the vertical part, with the axle poking through both sides of the pant, thus preventing the pant from rotating around? It's hard to keep something from rotating if it's just glued to a straight piece of .025" wire.

Or you could explore other materials for the landing gear. How about 1/64" steam bent ply, veneer, or bamgoo?  Like this, only in wood:



You might have to fiddle a bit to get the right combination of stiffness and strength while remaining light. I guess carbon wouldn't be in the right spirit (or maybe not legal?) for an embryo. Maybe you could shave a bamboo skewer flat and then bend it. I have an indoor model with bamboo landing gear which seem strong enough and actually ended up lighter than the carbon rods used on the original design. The pant could provide support for an axle.

Wheel pants