DIY Landing Gear

fliteadmin

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Here's an easy way to add landing gear to almost any RC airplane! Josh and Josh share one of many ways you can add landing gear as well as how to make your own wheels!

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Our landing gear design is going to go on our FPV Bixler and will be an internal/external landing gear design. This is the same deisgn used on our swappable scratch built series.

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These measurements may vary slightly depending on the airplane you're attaching yours to.
Start with 2mm Piano wire, cut the length to 40 centimeters and bend it in half at 20 centimeters.

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The center bend we just made needs to be measured to the width of the fuselage, in our case it's 8 centimeters. The grid cutting board is very helpful for projects like this!

Continue to bend the wire and flare out the 8 centimeter ends while keeping the center bend at a 90 degree. Next we'll bend the flanges for our wheels.

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We secured a popsicle stick through the foam fuselage and another short piece inside of the fuselage to secure the zip tie from pulling through the foam.

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Position your wire and zip tie the center bend to the middle and zip tie it. A good tool to have on hand is a pair of hemostats, these are long plier/scissor like tool that will help fishing zip ties and placing internal support inside your fuselage.

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Then, zip tie the wire to the outside of the popsicle sticks.
Next, you'll need some wheels!

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We made our wheels from slices of foam 'pool noodles' and caps from some old water bottles!

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These are some of the easiest and cheapest wheels we've come up with yet, and we could probably make 20 more sets from the rest of the foam!

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Hot glue the caps into the foam but be sure to let the glue cool for a moment before inserting, otherwise you'll melt your foam.

When drilling the holes in the caps, don't drill all the way through! You'll want to drill each side of the caps to be sure that the hole is center on each side.

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To secure the wheels on the wire, you can use wheel collars. If you don't have any wheel collars available you can simply use zip ties on the wire and secure it with hot glue.


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This is one of many ways to get some landing gear on your FPV Bixler or any other RC plane!
 

Carbon

Elemental Madness
I like to give my honest opinion and I have to say I was a bit disappointed with this episode. I noticed that editing was lacking, both in the background music and transitions. The information was good but I guess I'm still looking forward to an engaging episode. Just my $.02. A flight test at the end may have helped.
 

earthsciteach

Moderator
Moderator
Today is Tuesday. This is an unexpected bonus. Don't look a gift Josh in the mouth. :D

"What is Weezer?" That made me laugh out loud, or LOL in the kids' vernacular.

I'll eat my candy with the pork and beans.
 

earthsciteach

Moderator
Moderator
FYI - pool noodles are an economical way to add floatation to your white water kayak. Store-bought air bladders are just silly. However, there is an even better, low cost option to those silly, store-bought air bladders - wine box bladders! Yep, all you have to do is consume a couple boxes of cheap wine! I don't recommend doing this at once. Cheap, boxed wine makes for one hellacious next morning. So I've heard...

Look - I'm just entertaining myself.
 

StoneKap

Executive Producer
Admin
Moderator
Mentor
I like to give my honest opinion and I have to say I was a bit disappointed with this episode. I noticed that editing was lacking, both in the background music and transitions. The information was good but I guess I'm still looking forward to an engaging episode. Just my $.02. A flight test at the end may have helped.

Thanks for your honest opinion. Did you watch the end of the video?
 

Carbon

Elemental Madness
Thanks for your honest opinion. Did you watch the end of the video?
Ah! feelin' kinda dumb now. I usually turn it off once Josh thanks the sponsors! I will say I stand corrected! Also it is possible my mood was a bit worse a few hours ago when I was working on college homework and watching Flitetest!
 

Carbon

Elemental Madness
Jeez, now I'm going through a guilt trip! I just noticed the October update video and once again realized why I stick on this forum and with Flitetest. You guys and this community taught me how to fly and I need to respect that. I come from a small town where most people don't even know how aircraft work and with your help I am now a fairly competent pilot. I wan't to say thank you for the bonus video and for all you guys are doing. As you may know I have been able to get six sponsors now for my aircraft project and will be spending some extra time this week to send out some emails to possible sponsors for upcoming episodes. Also, you will be happy to know the Carbon B-3 will fly this weekend, proudly displaying a Flitetest logo!
Cheers,
Ben
 

House Of Noob

Junior Member
I like to give my honest opinion ...

You sir, cut me to the quick. How could you? ;)

As much as I disagree one should always feel free with their opinion. For my part, If the video has two J's, it gets a five. I was reminded why two days ago when looking for information from other sites. Compared to that? It is a different class of video/education/entertainment.

Edutainment?

Sure, why not?
 
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