Landing gear concept

[Greensuiter86]

Hey guys, my buddy had a gear collapse on his Skyraider II Monday evening I observed the landing and it wasn't a hard landing so there must have been some damage left over from a previous GL incident. His SK II had no suspension to begin with (other than the tires) just fixed tubes. Looked like the previous owen cut the bungies off to make room for the oil cooler. Anyway, this leads me to looking at all the options for "bush gear" out there and other designs. So far the options on the table were either the die spring set-up (conventional cub style replacement), or some type of retrofit that would require modification of the fuselage. I may be violating some kind of code here, but I don't see why we can't take advantage of the compression and dampening benefits of coil-overs? I've attached a concept sketch of some ideas I'm toying with and working on the math to ensure I have a good factor of safety in the stress points. My initial thoughts were to build a "cradle" that utilizes the existing LG attachment points and provides a place for the oil cooler to mount. This should not eliminate, but greatly reduce the forces applied to the airframe, and keep the failure point out on the LG leg. This should also alow for some suspension adjustability based on load and potential landing environments. I'm planning to mock up a set this weekend from either PVC or 1" pipe to see how it looks. Btw, I'm leaning towards the shorter shock post (bottom right) and a more vertical shock mount with a lower saddle in the LG leg near the 1/3 mark, this should give plenty of travel and adjustment with a 6"-8" shock travel.

Thoughts anyone?

Jay P
N627C