FliteTest Storch Articulating Landing Gear by woodycarson

Last crawled date: 3 years, 1 month ago

I've been holding off uploading this for a long time on uploading this. I feel at this point that it's durable enough where I feel comfortable with other people trying to use it. I just don't want other people to have a bad experience on something I made. Just know this isn't perfect by any means.
So if you're building this, everything lines up pretty much in line with the storch plans. The parts that glue onto the fuselage use the line where you would otherwise glue the wire in as front most part of cut you need to make for it to fit. For the wire, the bends are at the same spots, just at different angles. You want about 30mm before the bend for the ends that fit into the plastic parts on the fuselage. For the tail wheel, I dimensioned that part, based off of my storch build from plans where I cut off the end of the bottom fuselage piece where those two thin slivers of foam would otherwise be. It's going to seem too small if build from kit, but it can be made to work by cutting slits in the foam. The part called "gear guide" is the only thing I've managed to break so far. I would recommend printing that part out of PETG or at least something stronger than PLA. Keep a few spares on hand.
I did include the FreeCAD files if anyone wants to make any changes. Good luck to you, they are a total mess.
22 Dec 17 edit: So I've been flying this plane a lot more recently. I still have yet to break anything but the guide clip on my plane. I made one of these for a friend learning to fly and he's managed to bust both bottom fuselage pieces, but these were crashes that probably would have torn the gear out of the fuselage if glued. For the guide piece, I upscaled the part to 105% and it seems that with the rod clipped in, the area where it usually breaks is under a lot less stress. I think I'm going to be breaking these less often with this change. After I get some time to test it out, if it works better, I'll update that file.