Bike wheel landing gear

[XL-C-100]

I would like to put bike wheels on my XL. I am wondering about the dimensions of the gear, I am assuming it needs to be built shorter for the higher wheels. Could someone with LE plans could help me out?

[Tom H]

My old LEU plans call for 20" diameter bike wheels.  The height of the fuselage above the floor is 21-1/2".  That puts the axles about 10" above the floor, and 11-1/2" below the fuselage.  The width, wheel to wheel, is 56".

Lay those dimensions out, fill in the blanks with the other parts from LEXL plans.

Rockiedog, though, modified his LEU with a taller gear so he can get real slow for landing.  Maybe, if he is still kicking, he can grace these pages with comments of his experience?

[XL-C-100]

Tom thanks for the measurements, I know it's been talked about before but if anyone has advice on tube sizing for the gear that would be great.

[scottiniowa]

it was asked: I would like to put bike wheels on my XL. I am wondering about the dimensions of the gear, I am assuming it needs to be built shorter for the higher wheels. Could someone with LE plans could help me out?  


if you went to this report 
https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/IronDesign/files/Legal%20Eagle%20XL%20gear%20angle%20view/

you will find the details of three different wheel/heights set ups each with a pdf file description. While 2 years old, there is still interesting information  concerning each height chosen.

Scott

[ParQld]

it was asked: I would like to put bike wheels on my XL. I am wondering about the dimensions of the gear, I am assuming it needs to be built shorter for the higher wheels. Could someone with LE plans could help me out?  


if you went to this report
https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/IronDesign/files/Legal%20Eagle%20XL%20gear%20angle%20view/

you will find the details of three different wheel/heights set ups each with a pdf file description. While 2 years old, there is still interesting information  concerning each height chosen.

Scott


How do you join this group ?

[scottiniowa]

 

By Scott
if you went to this report
https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/IronDesign/files/Legal%20Eagle%20XL%20gear%20angle%20view/

 


How do you join this group ?

ParQld, if your asking how to join this group? it is exactly like any other Yahoo group, no restrictions, no waiting time, nothing. When it ask you to sign up or in, just do like you have done with any Yahoo group page.   

Scott

[ParQld]

Hi Scott I tried and this is what i got. says I have to be a member ?

[scottiniowa]

You can start at the first page to become a member, just like any yahoo group.
That page would be here,    https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/IronDesign/info
 then a simple look for files for the Legal Eagle XL would be present on the landing gear heights

Should do the trick for you.

[Rv8tor]

Here a picture my with fat tires . I just measured fuse height and built to that stance

[riorex2002]

looks very good ,This brings up a point,Are these spoked wheels better off in resisting cross load than the solid variety.I do remember in my  old racing days of a LONG time ago when the solid wheels came out,that there was a marked improvement in the handling which we attributed to less flexing.This is important to me as i could never be called good at landing before and will probably be interesting as i get more mature?at the completion of this project
Rex

[Dan_]

3 attachments  from Scott's yahoo group files...

[Rv8tor]

Here a picture my with fat tires . I just measured fuse height and built to that stance

Well that shouldn't be a problem legal eagle definitely is not a race car at least mine isn't   You will love it when you start flying it

[stevejahr]

Here a picture my with fat tires . I just measured fuse height and built to that stance

The tire I like.  What size is it?

The wheel not so much.  It appears to have a stamped sheet metal hub?  I would worry about strength and fatigue with that hub during landing.  That type of wheel is typically used on slow load haulers with low lateral loading.

Here is a video on spoked wheel dynamics:


Interesting bits from that video include a spoke tension of 264 lbs providing an overall vertical tension of 528 lbs.  Vertical load should be less than that or spokes start to go slack which leads to breakage.

Also interesting is for a typical bike wheel that 264 lbs of spoke tension only nets about 22 lbs of lateral tension.  So it does not take much to get the wheel to move sideways.  In the video they load the wheel up and show the amount of side deflection.

This will be greatly affected by the width of the hub and diameter of the rim.  Many high performance trikes limit the wheel size to 16" or 20" to control lateral deflection even though 26" or 700C would lead to a smoother ride with less resistance.  The video provides the math models enabling one to calculate the benefit to lateral stiffness of increasing hub width.

[scottiniowa]

Here a picture my with fat tires . I just measured fuse height and built to that stance

Those sure looked good at the OSH show this past summer!  Still working good?