Grove 1-piece on my -8 project
I was lucky enough to inquire to Grove about a 1-piece gear when they had one remaining on the shelf. My project is now sitting on that gear. Mine is non-airfoil but I'm happy to have the structural advantages I believe it offers. Dan H is right on about the mods needed to fit the single gear structure.
One additional consideration: Since the gear is affixed with only the two outboard U fittings, all of it is free to flex in response to vertical landing loads. There's not much room under the center part of the gear for this flexing, which would be downward at that location. I called the Grove engineering guys and was told that normal flex would be about 1/4 inch in the center of the gear. There was less than that much room between the gear cross-member and the cover panel connecting the two Z channels fwd and aft of the gear. Having seen Grove video of extreme landing loads on 1-piece gear (for other airplanes) and seeing INCHES of flex in the central part of the gear, I did two things. I put 1/4 inch spacers under the Z-channels to provide more clearance between the gear and the cover plate, and I made the cover plate removable, and light weight, so that it would, hopefully, be the only thing damaged if the gear is ever flexed enough to contact it. This required a little adjustment to the lower skins in the landing gear area, but in the final analysis, the extra 1/4 inch of depth is visually difficult to detect.
One big benefit: Getting the gear aligned during installation was a snap. Two measurements to ensure that the unit was perpendicular to the aircraft center line and you're done.
I was lucky enough to inquire to Grove about a 1-piece gear when they had one remaining on the shelf. My project is now sitting on that gear. Mine is non-airfoil but I'm happy to have the structural advantages I believe it offers. Dan H is right on about the mods needed to fit the single gear structure.
One additional consideration: Since the gear is affixed with only the two outboard U fittings, all of it is free to flex in response to vertical landing loads. There's not much room under the center part of the gear for this flexing, which would be downward at that location. I called the Grove engineering guys and was told that normal flex would be about 1/4 inch in the center of the gear. There was less than that much room between the gear cross-member and the cover panel connecting the two Z channels fwd and aft of the gear. Having seen Grove video of extreme landing loads on 1-piece gear (for other airplanes) and seeing INCHES of flex in the central part of the gear, I did two things. I put 1/4 inch spacers under the Z-channels to provide more clearance between the gear and the cover plate, and I made the cover plate removable, and light weight, so that it would, hopefully, be the only thing damaged if the gear is ever flexed enough to contact it. This required a little adjustment to the lower skins in the landing gear area, but in the final analysis, the extra 1/4 inch of depth is visually difficult to detect.
One big benefit: Getting the gear aligned during installation was a snap. Two measurements to ensure that the unit was perpendicular to the aircraft center line and you're done.