Nat Penton's Carbon Tube Landing Gear

[Rcmaster199 at aol.com]

The setup is fairly straight forward.  In his latest VooDoo XPRESS, it's a 
little different than I described before. It's possibly even easier, as follows:

A set of 8, 1/32" plywood rings, 4 each wing are needed, about 1.5" in 
diameter. Center hole should be a snug fit for the carbon sleeve material
.
The carbon sleeve material is regular thin walled carbon tubing with an ID 
compatible with the carbon strut you are going to use. Nat uses a 230x130 carbon 
strut and a 240 ID carbon sleeve.

A hole is reamed into each wing panel in the location desired, and at the 
desired rake and camber angles, right through the skins
. The ply rings will secure the hole
, once the assembly is made.

The sleeves are Pro Bonded in the foam wingand the ply plates are secured 
with thick CA. The sleeve is left long on the bottom surface by about 1 inch. Top 
side is trimmed flush.

The Carbon tube struts are fitted into the sleeves on the snug side, by 
laying a little ca on the mating surface of the struts that will be inserted into 
the sleeves and sanding smooth. Just like when a wing tube needs adjusting to 
get the nice snug feel of a new set of wings.

The struts are wrapped with a length of Kevlar thread (preferably). I would 
use two layers of Kevlar thread on bias in criss-cross fashion, to produce 
better tortional rigidity.

The airfoiled sectioned sleeves are fiberglass. Nat gets a length of medium 
sized wooden fairing  material from Hobby People and wraps it with a piece of 
wax paper. 3M 77 spray holds the paper in place. 

If you don't want or can't get the ready made stuff, carve your own from firm 
balsa and wrap it with wax paper

Then spray the paper with 3M 77 and lay up a strip of 4 ounce cloth, around 
the form at least twice. Smooth it down as well as you can, and then CA the 
glass cloth onto the wax paper.

Once cooked off, take a heat gun and lightly heat the glass to melt the wax, 
and the glass part will slide right off. Wash the inside with alcohol, the 93% 
stuff from Wal Mart. Don't use acetone or MEK

Slide the sleeve over the gear strut and epoxy in place, once its aligned. 
You are almost done.
Secure a short piece of axle material on the bottom of each strut with epoxy 
and align correctly.

The struts are held in place in the sleeves with a couple drops of flex CA. 

If you don't want to use a wing mounted set of struts, and prefer the fuse 
mount set-up better, then another half bulkhead former will be needed with the 
sleeves attached to it with the kevlar wrapping. Assemble the sleeves and 
bulkhead out of the plane, at the desired angle, and then install in the fuse, as 
you would the firewall.

Good luck and let me know how you make out

Matt Kebabjian
> Subj:Nat Penton's Carbon Tube Landing Gear 
> 
> To all who are interested in this extremely light, inexpensive, serviceable 
> landing gear method Nat Penton devised, send me a private message for a pic. 
> Pics don't post well on the discussion board evidently.
> 
> Matt Kebabjian 
> 

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