Does anybody have a good recommendation of wheels (specific make & size) and what size wire for LG for a plane to ROG & land off of grass? I see the glow guys do it all the time, I understand they have heavy planes & the power to handle it.

My latest T-52 should be heavy enough and powered pretty well, 53 ozs w/MEC Turbo 10+. I'm currently using Dave Brown Lectra Lite wheels with 1/8" music wire but it gets stuck in the grass.

I don't have a T-52 but I did come accross this page about installing landing gear on the T-52. http://www.jkaerotech.com/T52Lgear.htm Hope this helps.
Keep em hummin.
Dauntae

[This message has been edited by Dauntae (edited 07-05-2001).]

[This message has been edited by Dauntae (edited 07-05-2001).]

I see Dauntae pointed to the posting the JKA guys did of the pictures I sent them of the gear on my T-52. Note that it's geared 480 powered (APC 9X6 Slowfly prop, though it's a 10X7 in the pictures) and weighes 32.5 ounces with 8X1400AE cells on board.

It ROGs from moderate grass fairly easily, will shoot touch and goes, but does sometimes flip over on landing - especially if I come in for a wheel landing rather than three-point it. The wheels, as shown, are 2.75 inch Dave Browns which I used to use on my wife's Goldberg Mirage 550 for grass operations. I need a fair amount of rudder/tailwheel steering to get the short-coupled T-46 (clipped 52) going straight on takeoff until it gets rolling fast enough for the tail to come up.

At your weight 3/32 wire (as I used) won't work. The nose down attitude I see your tricycle geared version in some of the pics you've pointed to in other posts is a problem. What appears to be very marginal prop clearance won't help. OTOH you have gobs more power available than I do. If yours were a taildragger I'd expect it to practically jump into the air.

My favorite grass field wheels are Trexlers as they let you float over the grass rather than plow through it. You'd need 3 #8s for your plane (have to buy two pair).

I have a question for you: how did you widen the fuselage enough to get that T-10 on there?

[This message has been edited by BCawley (edited 07-05-2001).]

Thanks for the replies guys.

Ken @ JKA emailed me back pointing to your gear mounting method Bernard (I sent them pics of my T-52). I must say that's a great idea. I really like the tail wheel setup.

I was thinking of extending the gear longer and maybe going with a 10" prop rather than 11".

I didn't widen the fuse, the Turbo 10 fits very snug in there. It actually bends the doublers out a wee bit but it's not a problem. My nose wheel wire bent back a bit after my last landing try in grass. I'm going to make it steerable too.

Sal,

I used regular aluminum landing gear for my T-52, and it works great. It's bolted with blind nuts to a plywood plate that's epoxied to the balsa doublers, and foam.

The wheels are Dave Brown lite foam at 2", but could be larger. 3" might work.

I think you have enough power, and the added 2 ozs should make no difference. My local hobby store had some lite, thin gear for small glow planes. $12 or so. Forget the wire gear - too light for this application.

Chris

Originally posted by ChrisD:
Forget the wire gear - too light for this application.

I've used piano wire undercarriages on models up to 15 lbs, how heavy is a T-52

My T-52 is 53 ozs.

Chris, can you ROG from grass?

Sal,

It can, but I haven't, as I don't want to put 4 servos on the ESC by hooking up the rudder.

I've tested it, and it goes, no problem.

Bill - I don't think Sal wants to use 3/8" rebar!

[This message has been edited by ChrisD (edited 07-06-2001).]

I've never used anything bigger than 6 SWG myself (0.192", 4.877 mm)

But (back on-topic!) my Twin Star weighs 54 ozs, the noseleg is 12 SWG (0.104", 2.641 mm) and the main gear is 10 SWG (0.128", 3.251 mm). That will ROG from shortish grass and do T&Gs quite happily. Wheels are 2.25" mains and 2" nose.

Side view: http://uk.y42.photos.yahoo.com/bc/bi...+4.jpg&.src=ph

Underside view: http://uk.y42.photos.yahoo.com/bc/bi...+1.jpg&.src=ph

(can't figure out how to do imbedded images from Yahoo like I used to be able to do from Photopoint!)

Bill,

Try this, in Netscape, do a "view image" and copy the location (in IE get the properties of the picture to get the location) and paste it into an "img src=" tag.




- Roger

[This message has been edited by gnofliwr (edited 07-06-2001).]

Originally posted by gnofliwr:
Bill,

Try this, in Netscape, do a "view image" and copy the location (in IE get the properties of the picture to get the location) and paste it into an "img src=" tag.

Roger, that's what I used to do from Photopoint ... but it doesn't work from Yahoo (just like I don't see your imbedded image above).

Originally posted by gnofliwr:
Bill,

Try this, in Netscape, do a "view image" and copy the location (in IE get the properties of the picture to get the location) and paste it into an "img src=" tag.




- Roger

[This message has been edited by gnofliwr (edited 07-06-2001).]

easyer way in netscape would be just to "save image as" onto the desktop and veiw it that way.
Dauntae

I put regular Lite Flite wheels on today (upped to 2 1/2") and I'm going to try ROG'ing from the grass. They cut very short at the field and it's been hotter than heck for the past couple of days, really scorched the grass. The ground should be nice & hard too. I also lengthened the nose gear a bit & now I about 1 1/2" of clearance with an 11x7 MAS.

If these don't work then I'm going to try Bernard's recommendation of Trexler's.