bay will be glued in here later.
The mounting plate for the nose retract is a milled 6mm
thick liteply and fibreglass plate. Adjust the slot in it if
necessary so that your chosen unit fits nicely, and bolt
it in place using four small bolts and T-nuts, as shown.
here we have used a Spring-Air 300 unit with 100 de-
gree retraction angle, which makes it easy to obtain the
slight forward rake on the noseleg - and still allow the
nosewheel to retract fully into the fuselage. It is possi-
ble to fit a standard 90 degree retracting unit, but the
leg may have to angle backwards a few degrees.
Trial fit the fibreglass nosegear bay into the fuselage
now, pushed as far forward as possible into the nose
ring, and trim the back end if necessary so that it fits in
completely - and it just clears the bulkhead in front of
the wing opening. With the nose gear bay in place,
carefully mark the position where the nose retract
mounting plate must be installed, as far forward as pos-
sible to get enough clearance for the nose leg length.
The front edge of the Spring air retract unit shown here
is approx. 4mm behind the front of the opening.
Remove the fibreglass part from the fuselage and cut
the 2 slots in the sides (6mm x 45mm ), as shown, that
the gear mount will be glued into. Fit the gear mounting
to the slots, as shown, and adjust the height of the slots,
or add any thin ply packers, to keep the top of the re-
tract unit just clear of the top of the fibreglass part. Tem-
porarily fit the noseleg, steering arm and wheel into
your retract unit now. Shown here is a 1.75” (Ø45mm)
soft foam wheel, which helps to reduce any bouncing
during landing. The length from the retract pivot to the
centre of the wheel axle is 115mm.
Now trial fit the nosegear bay again, with the retract
mount and nosegear unit tacked in place with a drop of
CA to check clearance, and that the nose wheel will
fully retract into the fuselage. If necessary you can
lengthen the back of the gear opening in the fuselage
by a few millimetres. Remove, and then glue the retract
mounting plate securely into the fibreglass bay, using
slow epoxy and milled-fibre with a good fillet all around
the joint.
At the same time glue in the milled (T-shaped) bulkhead
into the back end of the bay, and also the servo mount-
ing plate, which is milled for a standard sized servo.
Centre the servo with your Tx, and fit the servo arm and
steering cables, leaving a little slack in them - which will
be eliminated by the small rubber bands that hold them
Fox Composites Co., Ltd.
19
The milled plywood mount must be se-
curely glued into 2 slots cut in the
sides of the fibreglass gear bay.
