deuxchevaux

Overbuilt and heavy landing gear and all the silly bouncing on landings looks silly when flying R/C planes, does this bug anyone else?

Has anyone tried making oil-dampened landing gear for nice soft landings? Yes you add weight with the shocks but the other members wouldn't have to be as strong as a result.

Sounds complex but there is a plethora of parts available from the world of R/C cars and trucks, I was wondering if anyone else thought this looked promising. I might have to give it a go.

TexasAirBoss

My Feedback: (22)

There are a few manufacters of functional struts. The struts use springs without oil dampening and work very well. One company is called Robart. The Robart struts not only work well, they actually look scale. They aren't that heavy. Such extras are tipically found on the larger models, say the 90/120 size and up. These models can afford the addition of a little extra wieght and the modles are worth enough to invest the extra money.

Charlie P.

I would be cautious of it. Oil is not compressable, but balsa is. R/C cars and trucks are plactic and metal framed.

You don't want landing gear stronger than the airframe it is attached to. They have a tendency to become retractable, whether designed that way or not.

Richard L.

My Feedback: (24)

Robart functional oleo struts work very well indeed without the use of oil. IMHO, the use of oil to dampen the landing gear is not necessary. Here are some short videos showing Robart RoboStruts in action:

* [link=http://www.warbirdobsession.com/tf_p40/movies/landing.wmv]Top Flite P-40E Landing[/link]

* [link=http://www.warbirdobsession.com/h9_mustang/videos/landing05.wmv]H9 P-51D Landing[/link]

Here is a touch and go and a landing without RoboStruts:

* [link=http://www.warbirdobsession.com/kyosho_zero/video.wmv]Kyosho Zero Video[/link]

By the way, RoboStruts have been available for years. There is a company over in the UK that does make oil-dampened landing gear struts.

deuxchevaux

Hello all, thanks for the ideas.

I guess I left a little bit out of my original post. I know there are off the shelf solutions for dampened struts, but they can be expensive, and I wondered if anyone had come up with some clever innovation more or less born of frugality, a home-grown solution. What I'm after is cheap, extremely effective shock absorbtion, and "scale motion" is more important to me for this project than scale looks.

Of course, oil isn't necessary if the shock works well without it. But you can find oil shocks, all sorts of linkages, ball joints etc. out of the parts bin that go on fairly heavy R/C vehicles. Charlie I agree oil isn't compressible but I believe oil damping works not by compressing the oil, but by moving it from one chamber to another. If you can get the same range of travel in your gear but dampen it, the motion will be more realistic than before.

Richard L. your videos show good flying skills can make any hardware look good on touchdown. (Heavy models help too, I suppose). The P-40E landing is funny to watch because it shows the difference between great damping in the front but not in the back.

I seriously think if someone went to town on this they could put on an incredible show, smacking down the machine hard on landing without any damage whatsoever. ... hmmm. hinged wing attachments.... LOL

Tall Paul

I use toyr/c car shocks on my Lazy Bee in lieu of the gumbands around the landing gear.
Mainly for the conversation value.
Haven't felt the need to use these anywhere else.

carlosponti

My Feedback: (1)

i have seen some of the ww1 modelers wrapping what looked like a bungie on an axle in a travel slot does the same thing so i am sure you can come up with something. i have also seen people make thier own from aluminum but they looked rough and probably took a lot of work.

deuxchevaux

Here's an example attached. On the right type of airplane or covered with fairings, they might look good. Cheap on eBay or from local toys.

Lightweight aluminum. Not necessarily the size or shape needed. You could possibly use smaller ones, stiffer, and a longer moment arm to save weight.