FT Tutor landing gear upgrade

[FishbonesAir]

So I've been pondering upgrading the landing gear on my Tutor for some time now. Ideally, I was thinking spring tempered 6061aluminum.

A question I'd have for the community is, if I had a company do a run of these parts, fitted for the Tutor, would there be enough interest for a short run?

These would be prebent aluminum, with a hole for a commercial axle.

 

[Piotrsko]

Aluminum can be formed with wood blocks and door hinges, cut out using heavy duty scissors. Not enough demand for the price you need to charge to even recover costs

 

[Foamforce]

Considering looking at the landing gear design for the Legacy v2. It still uses piano wire, but the printed parts seems very robust. I haven’t flown mine yet, but it feels stronger and straighter than the landing gear on any previous FT model that I’ve built.

FWIW, the Tutor landing gear was already a big upgrade over previous planes such as the Cub or Scout. The Legacy v2 gear is another big step up from the Tutor.

 

[Piotrsko]

RELATED to my previous post: pick your failure point. More robust LG means you can now destroy the fuselage

 

[Merv]

I agree with @Piotrsko, the stronger the gear the more damage to the fuse.

I make my gear from a stiff wire 3-4 mm. In a hard landing, the gear bends, absorbing the force, saving the fuse. The gear is easily bent back in shape. I don't even remove it from the plane, juts bend it back in place. My other suggestion, I use small zip ties to hold the gear on. In a really bad landing, the gear is ripped off, again saving the fuse. Zip ties are cheap and easy to replace.

No matter how much you reinforce stuff, something else will break. I build in intentional weak points that are easily fixed. In order to save places that are harder to fix.

 

[Foamforce]

I halfway agree. Reinforcing in one place CAN destroy another, but that depends on the force of the hit and the way that the impact is transmitted.

The early landing gear tabs on planes like the Scout and Cub has a foam to foam interface. It’s so weak that even a moderately hard landing will break it, damaging both the tab and the fuselage. In that case, the landing gear tab is weaker than the landing gear wire, so the landing gear wire can’t do its job of absorbing as much impact as possible.

Newer designs do a much better job. The Legacy’s landing gear “box” spreads the force to a large contact patch on the sides of the fuselage. Now, a moderate impact will fully bend the landing gear wire, absorbing much more of the force. Since the force is transmitted to a larger contact patch, and to a vertical surface, the fuselage sustains much less damage, if any.

A very good example of engineering a weak point to prevent damage is the wings held on by rubber bands. Letting the wing fly off prevents a LOT of damage.

 

[SEEBO]

I'll be "that guy" who comes off a bit prickly (although thats not my intention) and ask how hard are your landings? I'm a complete novice and the Tutor was my first plane and have ABSOLUTELY ABUSED mine and the landing gear has never needed more than a small tweak here and there. Even fairly recently when my elevator servo extension came unplugged and I had a landing so hard all my wing rubber bands snapped and ripped my RX from 3M duolock tape and I just tweaked it right back in. I've thought about a 3d printed clamshell cassette for the wire gear that slides into a quick release 3d printed pocket that gets glued into the fuselage that way you can keep the sacrificial pieces while making it easily swappable but haven't committed yet since I think I'm gonna prep my tutor for a combat retirement next year. With all that said I recently used some off the shelf dubro die formed aluminum gear on my Twin Legacy cause the 6000mah 4S battery I need for proper CG weighs a ton and the wire gear wasn't cutting it. I had to machine an adapter plate. Luckily I'm a CNC programmer/operator for an aerospace company and whipped up something.
That whole mess is here:

What did you crash today

Would have worked if it was 3/16 dia music wire. Bending it to fit and crashing are about the same amount of force (DUH!). Therefore if it is really hard to form, it is kinda more crashproof up until you start taking out the fuselage. I do like your mounting system.

forum.flitetest.com

I share this cause I'm curious if thats the route you're considering?

 

[Piotrsko]

Nope, decided that gear was optional for my purpose. I dont taxi or ground handle any more. From previous postings, I sometimes fly at a place where I toss and catch, that is the only way you can fly there. Hand launch, Belly land, although I can park one on it's tail and launch straight up. Sometimes.

 

[FishbonesAir]

I'll be "that guy" who comes off a bit prickly (although thats not my intention) and ask how hard are your landings? I'm a complete novice and the Tutor was my first plane and have ABSOLUTELY ABUSED mine and the landing gear has never needed more than a small tweak here

Maybe I'm just fussy about how "straight" I want the gear before next flight, or I got some badly tempered wire. Unless I have a perfect landing, like, grease that airplane onto the club's geotex runway, it bends. 😒

Call me crazy, but I expected more outta "trainer" landing gear, lol. 😆

Perhaps I should go to Ace hardware, buy new piano wire that's just a tad heavier, bend and call it good.

All that said, I wouldn't expect carrier-rated gear to hold up to some of my more spectacular "landings."

"A Good landing is one you walk away from. A Great landing is one where you can still fly the aircraft!" - source unknown

 

[SEEBO]

Maybe I'm just fussy about how "straight" I want the gear before next flight, or I got some badly tempered wire. Unless I have a perfect landing, like, grease that airplane onto the club's geotex runway, it bends. 😒

Call me crazy, but I expected more outta "trainer" landing gear, lol. 😆

Perhaps I should go to Ace hardware, buy new piano wire that's just a tad heavier, bend and call it good.

All that said, I wouldn't expect carrier-rated gear to hold up to some of my more spectacular "landings."

"A Good landing is one you walk away from. A Great landing is one where you can still fly the aircraft!" - source unknown

Sounds like maybe you did get some poorly tempered wire cause typically the stuff Flite Test includes is top notch and right up there with the tried and true KS Metals piano wire. Also I'm gonna get right out in front of this and say I royally screwed up and instead of hitting the "reply" button, I accidentally clicked "report" and typed this same response in that pop up box. I hope the admins read it and see it for the obvious mistake it is and if it causes a headache I am truly sorry!

 

[FishbonesAir]

Sounds like maybe you did get some poorly tempered wire cause typically the stuff Flite Test includes is top notch and right up there with the tried and true KS Metals piano wire. Also I'm gonna get right out in front of this and say I royally screwed up and instead of hitting the "reply" button, I accidentally clicked "report" and typed this same response in that pop up box. I hope the admins read it and see it for the obvious mistake it is and if it causes a headache I am truly sorry!

Happens man, lol 😆

 

[Piotrsko]

Can't remember how to shop harden piano wire, been too long since high school metal shop but it's something like heat until blue (?) and allow to cool very slowly. If you heat to glow or above, it's soft annealed. Gunsmiths and knive makers know how. Bigger diameter solves some of the soft problem
Easiest solution is dont land hard, then it wont bend