Tricycle Landing Gear Aircraft

[George]

Good Morning.  I would like to know if anyone has had to add counterweight to either the nose or engine nacelles of scale model B-25s, ME-262s, P-38s, or P-39s to keep the emppenage from touching the ground.  I know it depends on distribution of weight.  What say you? Please advise? Thanks.

[Ayovan]

Some kits actually come with weights for counter balance, but adding lead to the nose of a tricycle gear aircraft model is pretty much the norm. Most are very tail heavy.

[George]

Gents:  Thanks for the tips!  I think the Me-262 are counterbalanced by the engine nacelles but we will see.

[Oldbaldguy]

I always add weight in the nose of any tri gear model I build - don’t care what it is.  Usually, the operative question is how much?  And that depends on the airplane.  But I always do it; better safe than sorry.

[Ayovan]

I'd put money on needing weight in the 262. I have built a couple and they were both TAIL HEAVY. The P-38 you mentioned is also extremely tail heavy. A whole lot of twin boom and tail plane aft of the main gear.

Edited March 13, 2021 by Ayovan

[Dpgsbody55]

On every model I've built that has tricycle gear, I've added lead weight to get them to stand on the nose wheel.  This includes the HKM Meteor which even comes with a weight. 

 

 

When I built my P-39, I added weight to both sides of the nose wheel well as you can see.  But there's weight added inside those yellow bottles, the silver ammo box and green box behind that, as well as the prop reduction gear and the black box between the guns.  Like the P-38, there's way to much plane behind the main gear, so you usually need to add weight wherever you can.

 

 

Cheers,

Michael

[Phantom2]

Hi!

 

I have built all of those, except the B-25, and ALL needed a LOT of weight to stand correctly on the nose gear!

 

Remember, all have a very "tail heavy" sit, so they will need a LOT more then the instructions suggest, pack in as much weight as you can.

Even if there´s a weight in the kit, NEVER trust it to be enough, add MORE, don´t ask how I know...

 

I also do as Jennings suggested, always tape the aircraft together and see what happens.

 

For the Me262, I cut about 4-5mm off the plastic main gear legs to get the correct sit, if you use the included metal gear it will sit too high with the tail.

 

Cheers!

 

Stefan 

Edited March 14, 2021 by Phantom2

[MikeC]

Of course, many aircraft would "tail-sit" in real life if aircrew or groundcrew were not careful.  Fill the rear fuel tank on a Canberra before the forward tank, for example, and it was bound to "sit down".  I believe the F7F actually tail-sat as a matter of course with no pilot, no ammunition, and empty tanks; can anyone confirm or deny that?  And I've seen a photo of a B-24 in that situation, can't remember which book, mag or website.  So with a bit of lateral thinking, there are some diorama possibilities there.

[Ayovan]

1 hour ago, Phantom2 said:

Hi!

 

I have built all of those, except the B-25, and ALL needed a LOT of weight to stand correctly on the nose gear!

 

Remember, all have a very "tail heavy" sit, so they will need a LOT more then the instructions suggest, pack in as much weight as you can.

Even if there´s a weight in the kit, NEVER trust it to be enough, add MORE, don´t ask how I know...

 

I also do as Jennings suggested, always tape the aircraft together and see what happens.

 

For the Me262, I cut about 4-5mm off the plastic main gear legs to get the correct sit, if you use the included metal gear it will sit too high with the tail.

 

Cheers!

 

Stefan 

You bring up a good point about metal landing gear. After adding enough weight to the nose of my P-38, the plastic main gear are now bowing out. The spindles are not sufficient to support the weight of the model, so I'll be doing a retro-fit of some metal legs on that one.

[ironman1945]

As others have mentioned, good idea to use metal landing gear as well.  I usually replace kit plastic items with ones made of brass tubing. I know Scale Aircraft Conversions makes replacement cast metal landing gear, but I've always been worried wrt the soft metal they use for their items.

 

Dave/Ironman1945

[D Bellis]

2 hours ago, ironman1945 said:

I know Scale Aircraft Conversions makes replacement cast metal landing gear, but I've always been worried wrt the soft metal they use for their items.

K1 used SAC gear on his Fw 190D build, and it sagged over time. The one set I bought could be easily bent with my fingers, so I never used them. 

 

Brass legs from G Factor, Aerocraft and possibly others are the way to go.

 

The metal gear that comes with the Trumpeter Me 262 kits are quite nice and also very solid. Unfortunately, the mains are about 1/8" - 3/16" too long (both plastic and metal parts), so I only used the metal nose leg and shortened the kit's plastic main legs when I built mine.

 

D

[Jack]

52 minutes ago, Jennings Heilig said:

I'm curious why there seems to be this rash of landing gear collapses on our models coincident with the appearance of cast metal replacements in the market in the past few years.  Models with styrene gear struts always seemed to do *just* fine before anyone had ever heard of cast metal landing gear struts.  

 

yup, right on, indeed "why".

Ok, some kits can profit of "non styrene" LG legs, but then, as mentioned before, IF that's the issue, i'd put my money on the G Factor ones, and no way i'm going to touch SAC conversion stuff, noooooo way......

[Out2gtcha]

The KHM OV-10 absolutely 100% needs the Aero-craft brass replacement gear.

It's only a matter of time before the OOB plastic gear splays, it's just the nature of the design of tthe gear.

[LSP_Ron]

The only two kits I can think of from my experience that truly do need metal gear are the Trump F-105 and Academy F-18

 

That said, you can't beat Damian's landing gear at Synthetic Ordnance Works. 

 

https://forum.largescaleplanes.com/index.php?/forum/103-synthetic-ordnance-works/

[Out2gtcha]

1 hour ago, LSP_Ron said:

The only two kits I can think of from my experience that truly do need metal gear are the Trump F-105 and Academy F-18

 

That said, you can't beat Damian's landing gear at Synthetic Ordnance Works. 

 

https://forum.largescaleplanes.com/index.php?/forum/103-synthetic-ordnance-works/

 

 

As of late, sets like DBs Shinden set are really needed. I have purchased all of his sets for all the models I have in stock atm, based solely on the fact that I love the polished oleo look with actual polished metal. SO much better than OOB or cast gear out there. Not just hanger queens either, with hardened steel inside. Well worth the money in my book for the oleos alone.