Brodhead Pietenpol Association

Original Posted By: "Ken Hannan"
Subject: Pietenpol-List: struts that join the two fuselages Thanks for the answers to my question. I will be able to move ahead and finish the primary fuselage structure now. Gene I will be using the wooden landing gear. I will be installing brakes and this will cause me to move the gear forward but I have not yet established how far. I think that this may affect the final location of the 3/4x 2" ash cross struts on the fuselage floor (I am building the extended fuselage). I look forward to hearing from you.Thanks again everyone,Norm and Adrienne DecouNormDecou(at)aol.com ________________________________________________________________________________

Original Posted By:
Moving the gear (i.e. axle) position forward would not change the attachmentpoints on the fuselage which are dictated by the underlying structure. Ifyou are using the wooden gear and the original style fittings, you would NOTput on any ash cross pieces, they are not in the fuselage that uses the woodgear. Instead, there is only the 1" square spruce just like the rest of thefuselage.If you want to use the ash pieces, you will have to use modified gearfittings such as those designed by Frank Pavliga. Also, you may have tomake the ash slightly over 2" and/or move them forward or aft a little bitto make the attachments line up with the underlying structure.Also, what I noticed at Brodhead, is that when putting wood gear on the"Improved" fuselage, the strut attach fittings are not the same distanceapart as the wing spars, so the struts are NOT parallel to each other.Those airplanes using the "long" fuselage seemed to have these fittings thecorrect distance apart so that the struts are parallel, but this may takesome jockeying as well.Gene----- Original Message -----

Original Posted By:
Also, someone responded to my comment that the ash pieces are mostly forcompression. While it is true that FLIGHT loads place the cross pieces intension, this is minor compared to the compression loads transmitted throughthe gear when landing on a rough surface. If flight loads were the onlyconcern, a 1" square cross piece would be good enough (and probably isanyway), but a larger ash piece was added to beef up the gear.Gene----- Original Message -----