Setting up SuperCub gear on my experimental bushwacker, I would like your opinions on toe-in, toe-out, neutral. Im running 6 inch extended gear with 35 inch bushwheels.

Thanks Rick

I just got done installing new axles, wheels and brakes on my 180. I talked to a few people about alignment and everyone said how important it is especially a tailwheel equipped aircraft. I set mine with almost 0'' of toe in. The book calls for 0'' to .12''. Cessna also wants 4 to 6 degrees of positive camber. Cessna uses shims between the axle and gear leg and it was a long process of finding the right shim combination.

I have restored a few cubs and don't recall any way to adjust that type of gear. A little toe in is o.k. but toe out is bad. If you have the gear on measure center to center on the front of the tire and go to the back side and measure across the same spot and see if the measurement shrinks(toe out) or grows(toe in)

I have not flown my airplane yet to see how it is going to handle, still waiting for the blessing from the FAA.

Dave

The way you adjust toe-in or toe-out on Cub gear is with a VERY long, VERY strong piece of pipe, and sometimes a hot wrench to normalize it.

Otherwise, it's fixed by the attachments on the fuselage.

MTV

Wheel castor is like wheel landings.... everybody has a different opinion. Friends have told me that you don't want toe-in, cuz if you start to ground loop and a wing starts to come up, the opposite-side wheel will want to tuck in & make things worse. Makes sense to me.
I think absolutely neutral castor is the way to go, with some top-out (positive?) camber.
I'd research this on the sc.org site- lots of exp there with the nuances of PA-18 gear.
I'm curious why no one (other than Cessna) seems to like leaf-spring gear for light bush-type airplanes. As maintenance-free as anything can be, hell for stout, easy to adjust alignment with bolt-on axles. Grove aluminum leaf-spring gear is the hot ticket for light homebuilts like Kitfoxes, etc. Maule even offers leaf-spring gear on factory airplanes.

Eric

I'm sure I'll start something here, but spring gear is heavier than the alternatives. Tougher, maybe. Almost maintenance free, yes, but heavier.

zero.one.victor wrote: I'm curious why no one (other than Cessna) seems to like leaf-spring gear for light bush-type airplanes.

I know the original gear on our 170's is super plush, but the rebound rate of the spring steel I think is the downside. The oleo struts and bungees provide a greater rate of dampening...which I think is the reason they're preferred for this type of flying.

I would also point out that Cessna isn't the only purveyor of spring steel gear--American Champion, on the Scout, Decathlon, Citabria (or whatever the hey they call all those now), Maule (oh, dang--I said the forbidden word ), etc.

Its just another way to make landing gear.

MTV

Thanks for all your opinions. There seems to be a trade off for every part of an airplane. The reason I'm going with SC gear as I'm A piper fan and like the options, time proven reliability and stoutness of this gear. I'm going to set up with 0 and adjustable OMEGA shocks. I appreciate everyone's opinions. I just want to do it right.

Thanks, Rick

Just to qualify the Maule main gear. The optional wide gear is not steel, it is Aluminium and is very stable as it does not have the long spring arc movement of steel gear. It is quite positive on the ground, however it is 22" wider than the oleo gear and with the extra fuselage reinforcement it is heavier.
Jeremy

Aligning Cessna gear is problematic because of the angle of the gear. If the axle mounting bolts were parallel to the ground it would be much simpler but since they (at least some) aren't the shimming process is hit and miss. I have found that toe-in on the 150/150 TD is the last thing you want as it can make the ground handling counter intuitive on landings and takeoffs. I vote for neutral toe-in, or just the slightest bit of toe-out on Cessnas, but I don't know how this translates to other TDs.

I do know that very small changes can sometimes make startling differences, so I'd say use small adjustments until your happy with the results.

What year's your 150/150 TD? Mine's a 1964 D model, with an O-320-E2A (dynafocal) & 74" Sensenich prop.

Eric

hotrod150 wrote: I'm curious why no one (other than Cessna) seems to like leaf-spring gear for light bush-type airplanes. As maintenance-free as anything can be, hell for stout, easy to adjust alignment with bolt-on axles.

Eric

Most likely because Cessna bought the copy rights to spring steel, and later steel rod gear, from Steve Whitman. So until that expired no one else could.

Phil