WH-300 3-Amigos build thread (3 ways of doing the same thing)

[KrisW]

	Quote: Originally Posted by randy racer
	mine came in today . everything looks great so far, and this thing is big. do you guy really think the tail wheel is to light for the plane? randy

Oh yeah. . . .wayy too light.

I have dings in the bottom of my rudder, and I did not bounce it.

I looked on t he RC SuperGear site for a main gear that might fit this plane. No dice. The Aeroworks and Radiowave extras are both too narrow on the fuselage mount. Not sure how the Dalton 330 gear on the Graphtech site would work out.

BUT. .being that I have a TON of leftover LG legs from Comp Arfs, I went ahead and built a main gear out of those last night and mounted it.

Being split gear (to slide into the fuselage on the Comp Arf) you have to find some sort of way to support and stiffen the junction between the two halves. On Comp Arf's this lack of support has led to the LG plate flexing then ripping out on MANY occasions, and one of the "fixes" is to join the two halves with a piece of 1/8" aluminum plate to stiffen it.

This is exactly what I did in this case.

After taping the CompArf gear legs on top of the WH LG piece, to set where the holes should line up (VERY close. . . within 1/16" per hole) I made a fill-in spacer plate out of aircraft plywoodso that there was a continuous, no-gap piece of materail across the center. Over this was laminated a piece of 1/8" 6061 T-6 aluminum from an old TNT landing gear I had laying around (My junk box is HUGE. .come in handy). The plate is about 4" long and the width of the gear F-R.

I drilled through the plate where the 3rd bolt would have gone through the LG if it had been in a C-A, then clamed it all in a vice using JB Kwik Epoxy to glue/laminate the entire piece into a single unit.

After about 15 minutes in the vice the (now 1-piece) LG came out very stiff and ready to mount..

BUT. . to assure that nothing delaminated in the center you still need to thru-bolt the piece into the LG plate on the Wild Hare, and the center of that plate is NOT meant for that kind of stress (the LG is supposed to "float" in this area, and only be attached at the sides where the angle-aluminum reinforcements are), so to reinforce and further stiffen the area I added another 1/8 aluminum plate (again off the TNT piece) to the top side of the ply LG plate.

This give you an "aluminum-composite gear leg-ply plate-aluminum" sandwich that is OVER 5/8" thick and about 4 1/2" wide in the middle,and basicaly ends all thought of flexing in this area.

The LG track comes in about 2.5" narrower, and stands up straighter, at about the same height.

The only "fugliness" to this installation is that you can see the bottom 1/8" aluminum plate and bolt heads, and the slighter more straight up stance for the landing gear. Actually, the stock gear looked a bit "wide track" anyway. I'm going to go back over it and smooth the edges of the aluminum with my Dremel and drum roll sander, then prime and shoot it with an off-the-shelf paint I have found is a perfect match for the Flame Red Ultra Cote covering (Painters Choice Apple Red from Rustoleum), then install the LG Cuffs to complete the installation.

[wildhare]

	Quote: Originally Posted by KrisW
	I looked on t he RC SuperGear site for a main gear that might fit this plane. No dice. ... then prime and shoot it with an off-the-shelf paint I have found is a perfect match for the Flame Red Ultra Cote covering (Painters Choice Apple Red from Rustoleum), then install the LG Cuffs to complete the installation.

Two important notes.

I sent gears to make the mold to graphtech about a month ago, I would think they are nearly ready by now. Web sites tend to lag actual products, you might try calling them.

I just sent the sample gears out to RC Supergear today, so expect something from them in a month or so (my guess).

The red is True Red Ultracote, not flame red.

TF

[KrisW]

	Quote: Originally Posted by wildhare
	Two important notes. The red is True Red Ultracote, not flame red. TF

I stadn corrected. .True Red it is !

(got them mixed up, sorry) . .but the paint match IS exact using the paint I listed.

[OverTemp]

	Quote:
	I just sent the sample gears out to RC Supergear today, so expect something from them in a month or so (my guess).

I sent a set to them 2 years ago. Still haven't seen my new gear.

[wildhare]

	Quote: Originally Posted by OverTemp
	I sent a set to them 2 years ago. Still haven't seen my new gear.

I had to laugh. I also sent gears to graphtech about a month ago, I wonder if they are done.

TF

[KrisW]

Did some flying today . .my cameraman SUCKED. . kept shaking. .

http://www.flyinggiants.com/gallery/...hp?photo=21555

[RC_Pattern_Flyer]

Did some more work this evening, got all the aileron servos mounted and wires run, will hook them to the control horns tomorrow mabe or this weekend.

Chuck

[airborneSGT]

Ok so a lot of progress has been made inspite of having family from out of town. I spent earlier in the week re-organizing my garage / shop and getting things in order. Of course I need to clean again after building some tonight.

I wanted to just show a bunch of pictures of various detailed parts of my setup. My goal was to keep it simple, organized, and clean. Let me know what you all think.

Note*

If you are going to use the titanium wheel axles and Kavan wheels you must use a wheel collar on the end and not the supplied e clips.

[airborneSGT]

Few more pictures.

[OverTemp]

Well... I'm off to South West Asia for a couple months. Ugh. I got a bit done and I will be leaving my Rabbit in the living room so it can keep an eye on things and keep the wife company while I'm gone.

Here are some pics:

[airborneSGT]

Make sure to bring back some foot bread. Man that stuff is the bomb!!

[warren cross]

OverTemp,perhaps bu the time u come back I can figure out how to upload pix,and get my camera working !! Be careful,and keep your head down.

[airborneSGT]

Not sure what group or company you are going with. When I was out on patrol in the mountains things were all good so long as we were in a platoon sized element. I would say anything smaller than that or like a team or squad sized element and you will make contact. Great thing about the Stan vs. Iraq is that often times we could not range the enemy with what we had and vice versa. It was really a fire support and indirect fire conflict. Rarely was there anyone close enough to engage with my M4. Now my SMAWD and AT4 is another story.

Good luck!

[airborneSGT]

Well mine is all done. I pulled an all nighter to wrap everything up. Took longer than I wanted but at least its all done. Have a few small things to finish like prog. radio for rates. I will post pictures and details sometime tommorow errr today.

[OverTemp]

	Quote:
	Not sure what group or company you are going with. When I was out on patrol in the mountains things were all good so long as we were in a platoon sized element. I would say anything smaller than that or like a team or squad sized element and you will make contact. Great thing about the Stan vs. Iraq is that often times we could not range the enemy with what we had and vice versa. It was really a fire support and indirect fire conflict. Rarely was there anyone close enough to engage with my M4. Now my SMAWD and AT4 is another story. Good luck!

Thanks guys. I'm a Herc driver. A little different experience for me. If I find myself out with a squad then something went very very wrong

Cheers!