Main Gear Length

[racaldwell]

I agree with Gordon's remark that longer mains are good for the taildraggers. I am not too far away from mounting the gear on my Xenos. If I find the engine mount weldment not symmetrical like some people here have found and one of the legs is more vertical, I'll go with the long leg and make a spacer to make up the distance inside the axle socket. But hopefully I'll find both legs are at the same angle.

The One Design I had with it's symmetrical airfoil wing was real easy to have the tailwheel hit first as the nose was up, really up, to get slowed to stop flying. The tailspring design went from square to round right at the tailpost. I made the mistake of pulling the stick all the way back too quickly just when all the wheels were down. That was too much load and one day I broke the tailspring right at the transition from square to round. I found that tail skids work great in keeping you straight down the runway but not so kind to the bottom of the rudder. Fortunately, the tower guy let me drive my pickup out and tow the plane back to my hangar.

Rick Caldwell
Xenos 0057

[NWade]

For reference -

I had a gear length/misalignment issue myself (see this thread: http://www.sonexbuilders.net/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=3471&hilit=landing+gear ).

If you want to see photos, I've had to delete most of my old Flickr account, but I have an album here:
https://1drv.ms/a/s!ApMKXiyfUEPR4Tmt2ywEX6474u28

Good luck!

--Noel

[chuckster]

It has been my experience that it is far better to measure down from the plane rather than up from the floor when locating things like axles. Just my 2 cents

[Spaceman]

Dang you guys make a good point, I guess more deck angle would do more good than harm. Maybe I'll go back to close to flush between the tops of the legs and the engine mount. I tried calling Sonex this morning but they're closed for a winter storm. I don't miss living in Wisconsin this time of year!

Anyway, in reference to what I posted last night, here are a couple pictures. There are more on my blog in my signature if you're really curious. This is how far I had to push the legs up to match the vertical dimension from the floor to the axles that the plans call for:

[Spaceman]

Just to close the loop on this one, I ended up using the full length of the gear legs. My floor-to-axle dimension ended up being 462mm, where the plans called for 424mm. So about 1.5" of extra clearance!

Pictures and an explanation of how I set the length and alignment here if anyone's curious:
https://paegelow.blogspot.com/2019/02/m ... t-2-4.html

[pfhoeycfi]

Now I am trying to confirm I have the correct length set, and it appears to be way off! With the forward fuselage level, the bottom edge of the lower longerons is 617mm off the floor, and the center of the axle at the outboard end is 160mm from the floor. So the end of the axle is 457mm, or 18", below the fuselage floor. The plans call for it to be 16-43/64" (424mm)!

That is exactly what I measured, 18" below the fuselage with the top main gear 1/4" hole placed as per the plans (1/2" from top end). I have no desire to hack off a chunk of each leg to make up the 1.3".

Peter

[N418SX]

Just a question, does anyone wheel land their sonex?

[gammaxy]

I do, about 15% of the time for fun. Seems to wheel land fine. In my experience, you can easily keep the tail up longer than you have good rudder control, but you can feel it before it's a problem. I've always just felt 3 point to be easier so that's what I normally do, especially with passengers. Eric Witherspoon took me up in his Sonex while I was still building and wheel landed it beautifully.

[n502pd]

Just a question, does anyone wheel land their sonex?

Yep, I do , just because of my TD experience level at 38.5 TT. I have, inadvertantley 3 pointed once or twice by accident, however as I progress with confidence levels, I am approaching the ability to be very consistant landing,a nd I will, eventually, progress to 3 pointers more. My biggest oncern still is consistant hard surface landings ( not looking like a total newby in public!!!) and getting there is still on the to do list prior to getting done with phase one.

[sjakulski]

Now I am trying to confirm I have the correct length set, and it appears to be way off! With the forward fuselage level, the bottom edge of the lower longerons is 617mm off the floor, and the center of the axle at the outboard end is 160mm from the floor. So the end of the axle is 457mm, or 18", below the fuselage floor. The plans call for it to be 16-43/64" (424mm)!

That is exactly what I measured, 18" below the fuselage with the top main gear 1/4" hole placed as per the plans (1/2" from top end). I have no desire to hack off a chunk of each leg to make up the 1.3".

Peter

Just now installing the main gear on my Waiex-B trike and finding the same issue. The plans call for 14 3/8 in distance from belly to outboard of the axle using the 24 1\2 in gear leg. NOT going to happen. Going to be more like 16 in. Sonex obviously has something amiss with that drawing/plan. I have made inquiry with them. The other gripe is they supplied gear legs of length 24 7/8 in the kit. Why not provide the exact length….geez. Went through 3 cutoff wheels cutting those suckers down to 24 1/2. So, the question is how many experienced the same issue? And, did you then set the nose wheel to the same length…I assume one would. Steve