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Flat Spring Gear Question

T

toobuilder

Registered User
I have quickly learned that this site is biased towards bush mods, but I have heard that someone offers flat spring gear for Cubs and Cub clones... If true, then you guys must know about it/them. I'm thinking of adding Cessna type gear to my Pacer hoping for a speed increase as is reported. Is this hype, or is there a significant performance difference over the Piper gear?
 
If your looking for speed and climb the spring gear is better. If your going to be operating off airport on rough terrain bungee gear is the only way to go. Also when you put spring gear on a tube frame ,remember the tubing will bend before the spring leaf bends.
that is why you don't see it to often.
 
Grove makes the gear. You can get it gun drilled for the brake line. A friend had an experimental Clipped Clipwing Cub that he put it on. Looked stranged but did well for his intent, Aerobatics. The Rupp Racer (Modified Pacer) uses a spring gear for speed. GA News did an article on it recently.
 
100_0567.JPG


Spring gear on a Cub.
 
We switched to spring gear on my Pitts S1S ... Loved it for the speed but it made cross wind landings very interesting if you were not perfectly squared up on touch down. We modified the attach points with square tube and used special plates to keep the stresses going in the right direction.
 
CPT. BLY said:
If your looking for speed and climb the spring gear is better. If your going to be operating off airport on rough terrain bungee gear is the only way to go. Also when you put spring gear on a tube frame ,remember the tubing will bend before the spring leaf bends.
that is why you don't see it to often.
Click to expand...

Well, in my case, the mission does not include bush operations. I'm looking for speed. Also, I know that there are compatability issues with the spring gear and steel tube fuselage structures, but Citabria's have them, so the solution is at hand somehow.
 
Steve Pierce said:
... The Rupp Racer (Modified Pacer) uses a spring gear for speed. GA News did an article on it recently...
Click to expand...

Is this the one with the RV-9 cowl? Do you remember the month?
 
Flat Spring gear

Watch out for the increase weight. It will probably weigh in the neighborhood of 35# more than the tube gear.

Cubgirl, if your Pitts doesn't track straight if not "perfect", you might want to ensure that you have toe out. I had a Pitts with the spring gear and did not find the problem you describe.

larry
 
The special pad that Girlcubpilot mentioned is a small half round pad that allow the spring gear to roll at the attach point rather than twisting the longeron. And girlcub pilot, if you don't already have a Haigh tail wheel on your Pitts, get one. They really tame that short coupled airplane.
 
Re: Flat Spring gear

Wantabe said:
...Watch out for the increase weight. It will probably weigh in the neighborhood of 35# more than the tube gear...
larry
Click to expand...

Thanks Larry. I do have a fundamental problem with adding weight to an airplane. It just seems so wrong.

Jason,

Thanks for the link. I'm going to try get in touch with Mr. Rupp.
 
Hey, that's a pretty interesting idea (using RV cowl on Cub)!!

Makes me wonder how the RV-4 cowl would mate up to PA-18? Would probably look CC-Sport-Cub-ish.
 
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