Finally opened my bush gear

[TJay 1041]

I have read a few posts where you say you should do this and that to keep the longerons from pulling together but I dont see how they could with this gear, so have a look and lets hear what you think I should do, I do plan on keeping the spring and length of travel the same, Here in Iowa when landing on a sand bar on the river (the Bush) I may run over a 1/1/2" diameter stick or maybe a 2 inch round river rock.

[EDMO 1078]

TJay,

Maybe you should unwrap the springs and show them - They may be what Joey C5Engineer posted and he replaced with lighter springs.

EdMO

[akflyer 1427]

Its not so much when you run over a rock.. its when you land it 5' off the deck and drop it in.  I like the tube welded across the top of the cabane vee and it looks like the cabane vee is shallower than most so it wont have a straight pull from the gear leg through the cabane.

 

Its your plane, but there are more bent birds from using this gear than not.  It only took me a couple hours to modify the gear to get another 2" of travel and 50 bucks in springs.  How long are the slots in yours?  mine were just under 2" long.  That is not very darn much travel for a pooched landing.  If you run big tires (26" plus) they will take a lot of the abuse out of a landing.  but if your running the nanco, king fox or 850s on it, I would be beefing that fuse up and changing the springs and travel.

 

[TJay 1041]

it looks like mine are 2 5/8th inch travel what springs did you end up with and what weight are you flying at.

[akflyer 1427]

I flew mine at.. um... gross on skis using the skidoo 325# springs.  Gives me a lot more travel before things go metal to metal.  I think the die springs you have a 425#

 

[EDMO 1078]

At least you should add the sheet metal supports to the longerons and seat front support.

EDMO

[FoxDB 17]

Well the plus is your front gear leg looks like 1-1/4, The horizontal tube will help as installed but would be better if it went straight from hole to hole, the higher cabane to strut attach will require less stroke but more load so it may work fine with the springs you have. For the type of flying your talking about it should be fine. A bad landing is hard to quantify, I bent an original gear leg and axle of the stock gear by a poor landing at gross at the airport. I bent my fuse with the bush gear at around 800 Lbs with a bad landing in the bush, the gear however was fine. Good luck and fly right.

Dave

[High Country 69]

The cross tube in the cabane is a huge plus, this is something I have added when building my gear and I would recommend doing on any gear with the cabane.I think its better to have the lower attach point on the cabane lower (I have the ideal angles somewhere will have to dig them up) but for most flying its fine its that botched landing that makes it a concern. as for the spring struts I would 2nd Leni and make more travel to prevent the metal to metal, that energy has to go somewhere. Another thing to consider would be to weld in a step into the main gear legs I use mine a lot, however they are not just for convenience but to reinforce the gear leg. A friend of mine ran over a taxi sign at slow speed on Brett's original gear that didn't have the "step" and it completely folded the gear up and took out his lift strut and longerons. should not have been a big deal but when the gear leg failed it turned into money fast. the step was the solution and seems to have helped a lot. Overall however I think you are going to be very happy with the stance this gear gives you as well as the ground handling compared to the original gear. 

[Dusty 126]

Great gear TJay ,I have the same and it is very strong.ZK KNZ recently got dropped on one wheel(not me flying) ,grass dirt between the rim and tyre ,scuff marks at 45 degree to tyre.We carried out a major visual inspection .No damage! Kudos to kitfox & highwing gear.

I never measured the wheel travel but appeared to be around 4 inches.

A bonus with the highwing gear is the luggage pod will fit with a few mods