[GZG] Help with 15mm Landing Gear

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Hello all you scratchbuilders and kitbashers out there,

I am trying to do some scratchbuilt droppers, landers, and civilian skimmer
type craft and am having a hard time with landing gear. The sort of gear I am
looking for are strut landing gear that end in skids or feet that you could
VTOL land onto any terrain.

Any suggestions, short-cuts, secrets to making these in 15mm scale?

-Eli

> On Wed, Mar 11, 2009 at 2:35 PM, <emu2020@comcast.net> wrote:

Cocktail sticks and cardstock?

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bash from a 1/72 or1/144 Aircraft kit?

Michael Brown mwsaber6@msn

From: emu2020@comcast.net
Sent: Wednesday, March 11, 2009 4:35 PM
To: GZG List
Subject: [GZG] Help with 15mm Landing Gear

Hello all you scratchbuilders and kitbashers out there,

I am trying to do some scratchbuilt droppers, landers, and civilian skimmer
type craft and am having a hard time with landing gear. The sort of gear I am
looking for are strut landing gear that end in skids or feet that you could
VTOL land onto any terrain.

Any suggestions, short-cuts, secrets to making these in 15mm scale?

-Eli

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I have considered buying some of the landing gear detail sets. This should
give me detailed struts and the like but the cost is a bit high. I am thinking
plastic tubing and rod might work well for the struts though any joints in the
landing gear could prove a bit tricky.

-Eli

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  Kit bash from a 1/72 or1/144 Aircraft
kit? Â

   Kit bash a Hind helicopter model into an approximation of those cool
gunships from Clone Wars?

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You know I have been considering that very thing. The problem is the price of
the Hind models that I have found. Might have to Ebay a couple.
1/144 is too small but 1/72 seems so huge. Those gunships were pretty
gigantic though.

-Eli

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m is normally 1-100 scale.

The effort to make the legs could depend on the design you are going for.

Something like a Space 1999 Eagle Transporter could be easier than say a leg
of an Apolo lunar lander.

If you want to make several that look the same you might need to set up a
template.

Wire from paperclips and plastic card for the skids might be a good place to
start.

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See, this is why I asked this question here. I like landing gear from the
Eagle for some of my designs. On some of them it's just a matter of mounting
"feet" right to the body. On a couple of ships I need something
like conventional landing gear - folding out into position.

-Eli

[quoted original message omitted]

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,

Use a square cross-section tube (Plastruct) for the struts and use
pre-textured styrene sheets (Evergreen or Plastruct) i.e. diamond deck
plate, v-groove clap board, etc. for the skids/feet. It will look like
the Space: 1999 Eagle "sort of"

- Ken

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,

I can imagine a lander like the one in SST or several of the others I've
seen as miniatures using a retractile Eagle-esque landing pad.

The eagle pad is characterized by a broad, square landing surface, possible
upturned at the edges. It has a single post (square or round) mounted to the
center of it that connects it to the lander. What stops these from being
retractile on hydraulic jacks to actually go flush to or maybe even be part of
the belly of the lander?

Put down four of those nice big, square pads and you have helped limit ground
pressure, spread the load, helped stabilize the lander, etc. The one aspect is
you'd leave popping them out until just before you touched down
because they would be aerodynamically drag-inducing.

I think many troopships look like 'a box with wings' and if the box has
integral jacks (either inside or just outside the box shape along the sides)
that end in these square retractile pads, you'd get a good solid result.

Wheels make sense when landing STOL or long strip style and on reasonable
sorts of ground. Skis are good for worse terrain (snow and grass) but don't
beat the square pads *except* that they can be fixed mounts and ski planes
tend to be of that sort (skis are somewhat areodyanmic). Floats are also
generally fixed mounts or a hull design issue. But if you have retractile gear
capability, and want rough terrain landing, round or square pads on a post are
probably as likely as anything. (see Apollo... see other projected lander
designs that involve VTOL landings not on concrete....).

TomB

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Eli,
Use a square cross-section tube(Plastruct)for the strutsand use
pre-textured styrene sheets (Evergreen or Plastruct)i.e. diamond deck
plate, v-groove clap board, etc. for the skids/feet. It will look like
the Space: 1999 Eagle“sort of”
-Ken
 That's a good idea. You could also use drawing pins, either flat or dome
shape to give you a circular foot a bit like that on the lunar module. The pin
could be inserted into some plastic tubing to form the landing leg. A drawing
pin ~1 cm would be about ~ 1 Metre in real scal, which feels about right.

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That would produce a sort of telescoping landing gear effect or a
shock-absorber. I will have to see if I can find some drawing pins. They
sound like they might make fine feet for VSF walker too.

Thanks for all the good ideas,

-Eli