IMHO the tubular gear is no good for a 150 taildragger. #1 is that it's "squatty", #2 is that there's no means of adjusting the camber & more importantly the castor (aka "toe-in"). If it's not dead on when the gear is installed, too bad- you're stuck with it, as the axle is just an extension of the gear leg with no adjustments possible. And ya can't put a big cheater bar on it and tweak it into alignment like you can a Pacer, as the tubing is spring steel and just twangs right back into the same place.
A leaf gear Cessna has bolt-on axles and you can adjust the camber/castor as required with tapered shims between the gear leg & the axle. I've talked to a couple guys with tubular-gear 150TD's, and both complained of squirrelly handling. Mine (with the leaf gear) handles great.
Dagwood, if yours has tubular gear and handles OK, that's great- I don't want you to think I'm getting after you.

Eric

hotrod150 wrote: Dagwood, if yours has tubular gear and handles OK, that's great- I don't want you to think I'm getting after you.

Eric

Eric, I'll be the first one to admit that if the main wheels aren't aligned spot on...the 150 TD can be a real handfull. After we did the conversion (Texas Taildragger from ACT) we failed to align the wheels properly and the airplane was as twitchy as a cat in a room full of airdales. I flew it that way for a long time, then finally took the time to straighten things out. It's as sweet as you could hope for on the ground now. I also agree that I'd much prefer the flat gear to the tubular version for a TD. Mine has the re-arched legs that give a narrower track, but more prop clearance...it seems to work pretty well. I run wheel pants most of the time, and swithch to bare 8.00's if going to the desert or back country (something rougher than Johnson Creek).

Bottom line with airplanes is whatever a person has: flat gear, tube gear, trike, TD, low wing, highwing, etc....if it does the job and they're happy with it...it's a great airplane.

My son told me that he seen a photo of my plane on this forum and that there were several members that were really dogging it down. I had to look and see what was being said, and found the the reviews were mixed. Some positive, some correct and some out in left field. To be expected of course. If possible I will try to set the record straight on several issues. First, it is a 1962 Cessna 210B, one of the early strutted 210s with the troubled landing gear saddles. In fact, when I bought the plane, out of Lancaster, Texas it had been bellied in. It got all new heavy duty belly skins and a full set of Cessna 185 gear legs. Let's just say that this was my way of complying with the airworthiness directive on the gear saddles. Most people say: "Why modify a Cessna 210 it has retracts already". Yea I know that's the first thing I thought also. But after careful consideration I changed my mind. I had always wanted a Cessna 185 "always", Has anybody priced one lately, a sweet low time one "if" you can find it, fetches 150K. Yet these old low time ramp and hanger queen strutted 210s can be had licensed and flying for 40 to 50K. Cheaper that that if they have slid down the asphalt, which if they have not, soon will. That got a poor boy like me thinking. This is a really long story and I will finish it later if you like, but for now i'll just say that I could not be happier with the plane. It has exceeded all of my expectations and then some.

Buck,
Welcome! Thanks for filling in the story for us and please share more of it.

buck_justice wrote:My son told me that he seen a photo of my plane on this forum and that there were several members that were really dogging it down. I had to look and see what was being said, and found the the reviews were mixed. Some positive, some correct and some out in left field. To be expected of course. If possible I will try to set the record straight on several issues. First, it is a 1962 Cessna 210B, one of the early strutted 210s with the troubled landing gear saddles. In fact, when I bought the plane, out of Lancaster, Texas it had been bellied in. It got all new heavy duty belly skins and a full set of Cessna 185 gear legs. Let's just say that this was my way of complying with the airworthiness directive on the gear saddles. Most people say: "Why modify a Cessna 210 it has retracts already". Yea I know that's the first thing I thought also. But after careful consideration I changed my mind. I had always wanted a Cessna 185 "always", Has anybody priced one lately, a sweet low time one "if" you can find it, fetches 150K. Yet these old low time ramp and hanger queen strutted 210s can be had licensed and flying for 40 to 50K. Cheaper that that if they have slid down the asphalt, which if they have not, soon will. That got a poor boy like me thinking. This is a really long story and I will finish it later if you like, but for now i'll just say that I could not be happier with the plane. It has exceeded all of my expectations and then some.

Well, you've set a fair few pilot's straight with that post!

You'd best go ahead and post some performance figures so the picture is complete

buck_justice wrote:My son told me that he seen a photo of my plane on this forum and that there were several members that were really dogging it down. I had to look and see what was being said, and found the the reviews were mixed. Some positive, some correct and some out in left field. To be expected of course. If possible I will try to set the record straight on several issues. First, it is a 1962 Cessna 210B, one of the early strutted 210s with the troubled landing gear saddles. In fact, when I bought the plane, out of Lancaster, Texas it had been bellied in. It got all new heavy duty belly skins and a full set of Cessna 185 gear legs. Let's just say that this was my way of complying with the airworthiness directive on the gear saddles. Most people say: "Why modify a Cessna 210 it has retracts already". Yea I know that's the first thing I thought also. But after careful consideration I changed my mind. I had always wanted a Cessna 185 "always", Has anybody priced one lately, a sweet low time one "if" you can find it, fetches 150K. Yet these old low time ramp and hanger queen strutted 210s can be had licensed and flying for 40 to 50K. Cheaper that that if they have slid down the asphalt, which if they have not, soon will. That got a poor boy like me thinking. This is a really long story and I will finish it later if you like, but for now i'll just say that I could not be happier with the plane. It has exceeded all of my expectations and then some.

Buck, Glad you ran out there and did what everybody else has thought about!! Hell a low time 260 injected 210 can be had for $25,000
This brings up one of the other thrashed about to death threads!! Let us know how you got it into the experimental catagory, there have been many here say you can't do it with a certified aircraft??,
Looks like you just did, Please let us know, as I am headed down that same road with a Maule.
?? I also happen to have a 210 with original doors, and some 185 gear legs, Maybe all I need is some PPONK gear boxes!!

hotrod150 wrote:IMHO the tubular gear is no good for a 150 taildragger.

I've talked to a couple guys with tubular-gear 150TD's, and both complained of squirrelly handling. Mine (with the leaf gear) handles great.

+1

The reason that Cessna built all 180's and 185's with the flat leaf spring gear, even after they had switched the rest of the fleet over to tubular gear, is that the tubular gear does not work on a taildragger.

Common sense will explain this immediately: The flat gear is flexible in one direction (up and down) and almost completely not flexible in the other direction (fore and aft). The tube gear can move as easily fore and aft as it can move up and down, which means that you have almost no control over the toe-in and toe-out at all in a dynamic (moving) situation. It probably doesn't even matter if you adjust the shims perfectly, because any brake, side load, pebble, etc. will pull that main gear rearward and change the whole geometry anyway.

I looked into the tube gear as an alternate to Cessna's custom steel alloy flat gear for my 172 conversion STC, and it just won't work well. I would have to guess that like the 172, any tube gear 150 TD will not handle nearly as well as a flat gear TD, no matter what you do with shims.

I totally agree Bill. The RANS S-7 I have has tubular style gear legs. While this has severed well for all those guys that land on smooth surfaces and even our own notorious Mr. Swingle seems to get the most out of it in his travels around the country into some pretty narly places, I am in constant worry about bending or twisting it. I bought the plane with bent gear and when I replaced it with new I left the fairings off until recently. Pure laziness on my part as I would rather fly than spend the time to make them. Flying the plane without the fairings will shock a person if they see how much this tubular gear twists/flops on a rough field landing....truly scary sometimes. Recently decided to put the fairings on and it makes it a little less noticable but it is still visible. I am sure having the much larger AkBushwheels on have a profound effect on the flexing the gear does. A flat spring type gear would help but this would entail quite a bit of engineering with the other option being a cub style such as the Roberts or RANS recently announced Monster Gear. Not sure when the RANS will be available.
The Roberts gear alleviates this but is way above my budget right now.

There has been some number of C150/152's converted to taildragger using the later stock tubular gear. Those are where most of the squirrelly reputation of 150 taildraggers comes from. There's not only both fore-and-aft and twisting of the gear going on, that later tubular gear is one-piece-- the axles are part of the gear leg, not bolted on, so there is no way to correct camber or more importantly castor once the gear is bolted on the airplane. A leaf-spring gear Cessna uses bolt-on axles for which tapered shims are made so you can get the castor and camber just right.

WWhunter wrote:I
The RANS S-7 I have has tubular style gear legs...
I am in constant worry about bending or twisting it...
Recently decided to put the fairings on and it makes it a little less noticable..
way above my budget right now...

I'll try to ride in on a white horse and come up with a solution for you. The key data point is that your fairing changes the stiffness of the gear leg in one direction, and not much in the other direction.

The RV series of homebuilt is well known to handle better (less gear wiggle) when you put the fiberglass and wood fairings on the main gear leg, which is also a round tube or rod. The RV-9A and other RV nosewheel airplanes have a known problem with the steel tube nosegear bending aft and trashing the propeller. Some enterprising engineer and RV builder developed a simple bolt on steel stiffener that solves this.

I see two choices for you within your price range. Study that bolt-on stiffener, and make up something similar for your main gear legs. Or, simply weld a strip of the same alloy steel on to the rear edge of the gear. I'm guessing a one inch wide by .090" thick will be more than enough. Then of course you have to have the gear legs heat treated after the welding operation.

Stinson also has a round gear!

I want to see more pictures of this thing.....find me a old 210 and do the same! That thing looks cool!

SE6601KF wrote:Stinson also has a round gear!

Don't they also have a reputation for being a really docile taildragger?

piperpainter wrote:I want to see more pictures of this thing.....find me a old 210 and do the same! That thing looks cool!

WE NEED TO TALK!!
PM me if you are really interested, I've got the 210!!

M6RV6 wrote:

piperpainter wrote:I want to see more pictures of this thing.....find me a old 210 and do the same! That thing looks cool!

WE NEED TO TALK!!
PM me if you are really interested, I've got the 210!!

I've got main gearbox inboard and outboard fittings and bulkhead reinforcements made out of welded 4130 that should be good for 3500 pounds..... and they're being PMA certified sometime before I #($*% die.

On another thread in this forum, I even posed the question as to whether an early 210 converted to a fixed gear would be a desirable product in the "real world" of AK operators. The consensus was no, but as a one-off experimental or field approval, it would be kinda cool.

But before anyone goes too far down into this rabbit hole, take it from someone who has been crawling around down in this exact rabbit hole for over 2 years... make sure you are getting some real benefit that justifies the effort.

piperpainter wrote:I want to see more pictures of this thing.....find me a old 210 and do the same! That thing looks cool!

I am probably being a bozo, but why can't I find the aircaft rego in any search results. I was trying to look into the experimental vs. certified aspect of it.

Wow! That photo was from Oshkosh1 I am surprised you found that one, Great!
With the dollar count aside, all pilots want to know about performance. The early model 210s take off performance was not shabby to begin with. I gained 150 lbs of useful load (1700 empty) after this modification. And you guys know about weight/performance. Two adults, full tanks equals 350’(manual flaps) of runway used. The climb is about the same as any other C210, the weight/drag difference seem to cancel each other out here. Cruise speed on the other hand suffers, 24 inches squared, yields about 155mph with 600x6s and panties, about 145mph with the 850x6s. This answers another question from previous post. I have a set of 600 tires, wheels and brakes, and a set of 850 tires, wheels and brakes, sitting in the hanger. At 5 dollars a gallon and 12 to 15 gallon an hour, you get the picture. I do get razed about putting panties on my plane. These days panties are accepted on almost anything? Scary huh!
Engine Model: IO-470-S (I want Texas Skyways IO-550 STC)
Horsepower: 260 hp
75% Cruise: 188 mph (I wish)
Rate of Climb: 1270 ft/min
Takeoff: 695 ft
Landing: 485 ft

M6RV6 wrote:

piperpainter wrote:I want to see more pictures of this thing.....find me a old 210 and do the same! That thing looks cool!

WE NEED TO TALK!!
PM me if you are really interested, I've got the 210!!

I would love it if you want to convert it and then we'll trade for a Mooney! otherwise I don't have 2 things...time (well maybe after Dec!) and Money (the military doesn't pay a lot!). I think a 210 is a pipe dream!