Flitetest FT Tutor RC Plane Taildragger Gear Upgrade

Using a spare thick landing gear wire included in my FT Tutor kit I bent an additional strut to support the landing gear. The about 15" wire was cut to about 14" in the process and bent into a trapezoid-like shape. See photos, pretty straightforward. My zip-ties are 2.5mm/1.5mm if I recall.

Then the new strut can slot into the hub piece, secured by small zip-ties. Then it stretches forward to meet the original landing gear struts using the gearjoin part with a couple more zip-ties. The hub piece slots into the floatplane gear hole that is the most aft. You'll have to cut into the slot, which wasn't too much trouble. Zip-ties are hard to get through the slots on the hub piece, so be prepared to pre-bend the zip-tie tips to get them to follow the bend properly.

Of course every FT Tutor is a little different. The hub should accommodate multiple sizes in case your bends turn out different. In the end though, adjustments may be necessary as I designed this to work with my particular build.

It has seen a couple of test flights now. It definitely strengthens the gear significantly and I no longer scrape the belly on hard landings. Bouncier too.

The gearjoin part is tough though because frankly it's not strong enough to actually prevent itself from sliding inwards. If your landings are good you won't notice a thing, but ground loops sometimes force the gearjoin inward requiring a manual reset.

This setup is also nice in case you lose your wheel bushings, as you only need 2 instead of 4. Though if you have long enough axels/shaft bends for each wheel you could continue to use them and have less issues for sure. 

I printed in PLA with .25 layer, 2 wall, 2 base, 2 roof, 10% infill to save weight.