Installed 180 Landing Gear

[cfzxo]

Richard, It sounds like they predate the lady legs. I saw a set of 180 gear legs on barnstormers , The pictures were not of 180 gear, even though the indivual said that they were off a 180, they definitely were not 180 gear legs. they looked like older 170 gear ( pre lady legs ) I sent a message asking for the serial numbers, still no reply as of today. I thought that maybe the person truly didn't know the difference.

[Ryan Smith]

Richard, It sounds like they predate the lady legs. I saw a set of 180 gear legs on barnstormers , The pictures were not of 180 gear, even though the indivual said that they were off a 180, they definitely were not 180 gear legs. they looked like older 170 gear ( pre lady legs ) I sent a message asking for the serial numbers, still no reply as of today. I thought that maybe the person truly didn't know the difference.

Correct. These gear have cankles...most definitely not lady legs. Good for spares, not much for anything else.

[hilltop170]

I don't know what "cankles" are.

How about posting pictures of the gear? Both face-on and side shots should be sufficient to determine what they are. L-19 gear look similar.

[cfzxo]

Good point about them maybe being L-19 gear, I have never paid much attention to l-19 gear as I so rarely ever see one.

[hilltop170]

An L-19 friend has a set of gear that look similar to C-170 lady legs or C-180 or C-185 or L-19 gear but are dimensionally different by quite a bit from all of them. Nobody in this area (and that includes lots of Cessna taildragger and L-19 guys) who has looked at the mystery gear can identify them.

I think L-19 gear would fit into the airplane and would work but will stand even taller than C-180 gear. No idea what could be used as a basis for approval other than a Form 337 Field Approval with Block 3 FAA sign-off. I bet somebody has used them somewhere, sometime. Any confessions?

[Ryan Smith]

I don't know what "cankles" are.

How about posting pictures of the gear? Both face-on and side shots should be sufficient to determine what they are. L-19 gear look similar.

Cankles are a portmanteau of calf and ankle...meaning that there is little to no change in thickness of one's leg as it attaches to the foot. My legs do not narrow to 1 7/8" at the ankle and then expand. It's a constant taper.

I will have to figure out a method to post pictures because my phone pictures are too large and it's a pain to put them in Photoshop to resize. Perhaps a Flickr account.

[Metal Master]

Another thing to consider is that the longer the gear legs, the more the landing gear geometry is prone to ground loop. Moving the main wheels farther forward that stock is undesirable for handling and should be done if additional prop clearance is absolutely necessary.

Reply: In some cases this is true However in my case with the TCM IO-360 installed my tail became so light that moving the gears forward actually returned the aircraft to a better gear balance. My gear is the early 180 gear legs (Gear Aft) however the wheels are still 3 inches forward from the early straight 170 gear legs. It handles much better than my earlier 170 gear legs did. My prop is an 80 inch diameter constant speed. The extra clearance is neat but it was not required. But it looks and flies amazingly well. Further before the 180 gear leg change I was afraid I could have easily tipped the airplane over during hard braking. I could lift the tail easily on handed. Now the weight distribution is more like it was before the IO-360. I worked all of these things out mathematically before I committed to doing any of the work. The early 180 gear just makes sense for this mod. If I had not done the IO-360 mod I would not have thought it necessary.

Sure it's only moving it only a little bit, but someday if your airplane happens to be swapping direction faster than a politician after election day you might wish you had that extra 0.5 second to keep it from cranking around.

Reply: My actual CG was further forward after the mod than original and I have to load stuff in the back of airplane to get it into a normal CG location to be desirable. Until I moved the battery to the back which helped more than I would have expected.The airplane has been intentionally ground looped to find how it handles. It has no more tendency to ground loop than it did before the IO 360 Mod

The self energizing, runaway nature of ground loops in taildraggers means any change in main gear position forward acts exponentially on the handling of the airplane.
The NTSB will probably support your view/

Better men/pilots than I have ground looped so I need all the help I can get.

This is why I recommend ground loop training: https: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFvD7Ok0ghY excerpted from this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Y3v1-WMJS8
My tail wheel instructor who learned to fly in the 40's gave me ground loop training. It has been discussed here before. I would not recommend trying it without an instructor who is familiar with it. The only thing I was taught additionally was to roll the ailerons into the direction of the ground loop which helps keep the wing on the outside from dropping to the pavement. I have done it both to the right and the left as currently configured. This procedure has saved my but more than once for various reason all of which had nothing to to do with the position of the gear only that it was a tail-dragger.
Jim

Maybe the wheels aft 180 gear is closer to stock geometry? I dunno...

[bagarre]

I would LOVE to do some ground loop training.
Anyone have a P-47 I can borrow?

[Metal Master]

Aryana IMEO (In My Educated Opinion) you do not know what you are talking about. Finding an instructor that can teach properly how to do a ground loop is the problem. If the people who you describe knew how to handle a ground loop instead of fighting it they may have saved there aircraft. IMO It is not if you will ground loop, it is when.
Jim

[c170b53]

I knew one day I'd be at the front / top of the list ( group one, those that have)
I'd also say in my limited experience, with reference to ground loops and spins; seldom are they the same, just when you think you have it , you learn again.

[Ryan Smith]

Throwing gas on the fire...

The only XP Mods 170 I've flown, and by far the nicest I've flown, has the old, original symmetrical gear from the factory. It handled just fine at a 1500+ pound empty weight. I don't think that 180 gear are necessary for that engine conversion at all.

Larry Cranton's lady legs in his 220 Frankie conversion do just fine as well.

[bagarre]

I have 180 gear legs because they came with the airplane. It has nothing to do with how badass they look with 8.50s.
And I'm sticking to that answer.

[Ryan Smith]

This is 56D's younger sister. She clearly doesn't look better than 56D with 180 gear and big tires.

I'm clearly not jealous, and definitely clearly not lying.

[hilltop170]

I don't know what "cankles" are.

How about posting pictures of the gear? Both face-on and side shots should be sufficient to determine what they are. L-19 gear look similar.

Cankles are a portmanteau of calf and ankle...meaning that there is little to no change in thickness of one's leg as it attaches to the foot. My legs do not narrow to 1 7/8" at the ankle and then expand. It's a constant taper.

I will have to figure out a method to post pictures because my phone pictures are too large and it's a pain to put them in Photoshop to resize. Perhaps a Flickr account.

Danggit Ryan-
There you go agin usin' 'em big words that I have to go look up to find out what you mean............. OK, now I know what you said.

Maybe I'm missing something here but from your last description it now sounds like you may have a set of older style 140 or 170 gear which have a flat leaf and symmetrical taper which allows installation on either side. Pictures would still definitely help.

I looked at a group of random landing gear today a guy has for sale. I could identify C-150, L-19, and C-180 gear in the group. There were several other random gear that I hd no idea what they were but looked fairly similar to the others. Cessna obviously made many different gear styles and sizes.

The way I post pictures is to email them to myself where I can choose the size of the picture. Then I save them from the email and post them to the website. Very cumbersome but works great.

I have 180 gear on my 170 for one reason, I prefer stiffer gear over flimsy gear, period. Looks do not enter into the equation although they do look better.

Random landing gear

[Ryan Smith]

Finally!

In the days of modern technology, it's getting harder and harder to get an image that is small enough to fit the max dimensions of the forum here.

These aren't the oldest gear legs with a hole for the brake line clip, but they're from an A or early B.