Does anyone know of any websites on building your own retractable model plane gear? I do googles on retracts, retractable landing gear, model retracts, etc" I seem to get just hits on full size gear.
I want to make a set of gear for a don smith B-29 cause I can, and cause I don't wanna pay $650 for the century jets version.
I just don't want to re-invent the wheel (pardon the pun!) trying to develop something that works.
John
I have seen a couple of sets of home made retracts. One guy had little more than the photo from Robart's web site to go on. He bought the air cylinders and struts, saved a bunch of $$$. If a guy had a milling machine, lathe, drill press some 7075 T6 and enough time....
refer to
Why not get the drawings of the real B-29 gear and go from there? You'd probably have to make some changes in one form or another but, you could end up with some killer scale retracts! The Smithsonian can help you I'm sure. Or for that matter, Boeing may still have the plans archived.
Chuck
I have photos of the landing gear of B-29's, Fifi and a couple of gate guards. Don smith shows some outlines of the gear in his drawings which I assume are the Century Jets retracts.
I've got a couple of sets of retracts I can study, but in all, I think what I need to work out is the geometry, and the placement. Since the main retracts have to share room with a fuel tank and a nacelle, it needs to be well thought out.
The nose gear I think would be pretty straight forward, as it shows a
116 degree movement, but the mains show a 75 degree movement, and are canted forward to boot. I'm not sure how to describe the movement of the mains, but its not "normal" as far as model retracts go.John
FWIW, there's a Superfort about three miles from my house - gate guard at Dobbins ARB.
Not a problem to snag detail shots if you need any.
Ditto for tape measurements.
A/c is fully accessible. Cheers, Fred McClellan The House Of Balsa Dust
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