Hello gentlemen,

first I'd like to introduce myself:
My name is Andreas, and I'm living in Germany. A couple of years ago I
designed an aircraft similar to the 235 according to the German
ultralight rules which we called "Impulse". I left the project before
the prototype got airborne, but nowadays you can buy this aircraft as
an ultralight or experimental with increased maximum weight and
stronger engines (here's the link: www.impulse-aircraft.de).

Now I finally have the time (and money) to build my own aircraft which
will be based on the Impulse fuselage and a new wing. So far the Impulse has a fixed gear, but I intend to equip it with a sophisticated German engine (Limbach 2400 DT), a smaller wing and a retractable gear.

In case you are interested in my modified Impulse: I put some drawings of my Impulse design on my webpage (they are still veeeery preliminary). You can find them here:

http://home.t-online.de/home/alphamike/Impulse/



Since I don't want to re-invent the wheel, I'm looking for proven parts that I could use, especially for the parts of the plane that need a lot of work to design (gear), and of course I stumbled over the Lancairs.

The main gear of the 320/360 looks like it's going to fit perfectly into the Impulse wing (with more than adequate strength since the Impulse is a slightly lighter aircraft, max weight of 1.500 lbs).

At the moment I'm thinking of using the Lancair gear parts that can be seen on these photos:

http://home.t-online.de/home/alphamike/Impulse/8617_002.jpg
http://home.t-online.de/home/alphamike/Impulse/8617_003.jpg

It's the lock mechanism (the blue parts) as well as the hydraulic cylinder that I'm interested in - at the moment it looks as if these parts will fit perfectly for the Impulse gear (btw: What is different for the outback gear apart of the bigger tires?). I'll make the gear legy by myself since they need to be a little longer than Lancair gear legs.


Does any one of you know if any plans for the gear lock mechanism are available (to check if it really fits)? I think that the builder's manual might contasin some drafts that might be useful, and maybe someone has even scanned them?


At the moment I'm planning to use the standard Lancair 320 locking mechanism and wheel unit with an Ong TK-5 damper. Any information would be very appreciated!


I'm also thinking about using the Lancair nose gear leg - any info about this would be appreciated, too!


At the moment I'm a bit reluctant to contact Lancair directly since I neither know the precise technical term of the parts that I'm searching information about (I like to know what I'm talking about when I intend to buy it ;)), nor do I know if Lancair is willing to sell them for a non-Lancair builder.




Greetings from Germany and thanks in advance
Andreas