|
The one rule about aircraft landing gear is: No matter what type of gear or plate an airplane has, you will be able to find modelers who don't like it and have changed it and like it better some other way. We sell lots of carbon gear for Acromasters because people complain about the wire, we sell lots of carbon gear for little yaks because people complain about the aluminum, and other companies sell aluminum for our airplanes because people complain about the carbon. We supplied our 55" Yak and 55" Extras with aluminum which was tempered to bend before applying much force the plate, and we can't keep the carbon upgrades in-stock because nobody likes the aluminum bending, even though with the carbon, if they slam it, the wood will take the abuse rather than the gear.
It is for this reason that we try focus on proper landing technique, because this allows a pilot to have whatever type of gear he likes and own some very light designs. Also, grabby grass puts more abuse on gear than nearly anything else. You can see intuitively that a "harrier plop" looks damaging, but (provided the wheels roll freely) it imparts an upward force into the gear plate. When you see nuts torn through layers of ply and fiberglass, this indicates a *rearward* force, pulling back on the wheels and twisting the gear backward. Something has to grab the gear to apply this rearward force. Either grass has to grab at the wheels pants or a wheel has to fail to roll from some reason. The popular "one wheel pant in the hole in the runway" landing is an example of this rearward force application. In this case, especially if a pilot if forced to land on grabby grass, it is important to approach as slowly as possible. This points out that, although some pilots are afraid to land on asphalt for fear of damage (grass looks "softer" to many people) asphalt has the very, very important property of not penalizing you for a fast landing. Provided your wheels roll freely and you're pointed even close to straight ahead, you can set down on asphalt quite fast without imparting any large forces to the undercarriage. Grass is often not like that, whether the pilot realizes it before the landing or not.
Also, everyone should keep in mind that over the internet, no one can see your landings. I'm pretty proud of my landing technique, but someone else might think I'm terribly abusive...who knows. The point is, if he and I are talking about "smooth landings" we might be on completely different pages and never know it.
|