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Douglas XB-43 landing gear


John R

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I am building an Anigrand 1/72 version of the XB-43 and the instructions for fitting the main landing gear are minimal, to say the least.

Can anybody please enlighten me as to how it should be done or provide me with pictures showing how and where it is attached to the a/c?

John

PS. What photos I have found on the internet sem to show that the gear legs supplied bear little resemblance to the real thing.

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I don't have available photos of my Anigrand XB-42, but my landing gear arrangement arrangement appears identical to hsr's.  Like he said, the airframes were basically the same and since there seem to be more photos of the XB-42 on the Internet I would base it on those pictures.

 

For either kit, the landing gear is a bit flimsy and I wouldn't trust it to support the weight of all that resin over time.  I had a spare 9 volt battery sitting around so have used it to keep the weight off the gear.  Someday I might actually replace it with something a bit less noticeable!

 

Cheers,

 

Mark

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12 hours ago, Navy Bird said:

 

PS. Not surprised the Anigrand parts aren't completely accurate.

Neither was I! I have have suffered at Anigrand's hands before but if it's the only game in town...

12 hours ago, Mark Joyce said:

For either kit, the landing gear is a bit flimsy and I wouldn't trust it to support the weight of all that resin over time

I had the same thought when I saw it. The man who produces Prop & Jet kits manages to cast the resin around a metal core. If only others could do the same.

 

Anyway thank you all for help. I can now see where the legs are supposed to be attached and I think that there is enough there for me to work something out but there are still a few unresolved matters..

That stub at the top of the leg (Anigrand) that doesn't appear to do anything.

Where and how are all those doors attached. It would appear that it first flew without them. Presumably they couldn't trust them all to work.

John

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John R and others,

 

See the link below to some very interesting photos, especially the unusual wing-mounted aft-firing gun setup as well as how the main gear pivots while retracting/extending. Hope you haven't seen these before!

Mike

 

https://oldmachinepress.com/2017/08/05/douglas-xb-42-mixmaster-attack-bomber/

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After much digging in the internet I have reached some conclusions. There is a narrow u/c bay in the wing into which the main leg fits and this has its own door which can be seen in the photo above..

There is also a small fairing which starts behind the wing leading edge. It's hard to make out in some photos unless you know it's there.

Below shows where Anigrand would have you fit the gear leg.

Photo%20of%20uc%20leg%20attachment%202_z

 

The next picture is of the XB-42 gear because it's the only 'clear' picture I could find. You can just make out the bay in the wing and can see which is the main gear leg and that part of the Anigrand leg does not exist

Top%20of%20main%20uc%20leg_zps6ty5zuop.j

 

main%20uc%20leg_edited-1_zpszs9hzk06.jpg

 

There is a great difference between the XB-43 and the XB-42 as regards the u/c doors.

I hope this is clear. More to come

John

 

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See https://ww2aircraft.net/forum/threads/trip-to-the-national-museum-of-the-us-air-force.31824/page-19

 

Note that the XB-42 and XB-43 are side-by-side with the XB-43 on the right.

 

It looks to me like that portion of the landing gear does in fact exist and the two short legs form a tilted Y, the top of which is the angled pivot axis of the landing gear retraction. However, Anigrand may not have gotten the legs oriented properly (the outboard top of the Y has to angle forward so that the wheel goes into the well more or less vertical with the strut outboard, assuming the B-43 gear retracts like the B-42's; see https://oldmachinepress.com/2017/08/05/douglas-xb-42-mixmaster-attack-bomber/).

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Sometimes, I can't stop myself. After taking a close look at pictures and crudely mocking up the strut to establish the required axis of rotation, I'm all but certain that there is a Y at the top of the strut, with the forward leg being much longer than the aft one and extending farther up into the fuselage or wing. As a result, it looks like the Anigrand landing gear strut, given that the kit part is truncated at the lower wing surface for simplicity, is pretty close to correct as "hsr" installed it on his XB-42 model pictured above. For a description and illustrations, see https://tailhooktopics.blogspot.com/2019/09/douglas-xb-4243-main-landing-gear.html

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Thank you for that Tommy. A brilliant suggestion. After reading your blog I took another look at the picture of the u/c as I had wondered about the function of the inner portion of the 'Y' as it looked as if it had a forked end. If you draw a line along what appears to be the top of the fork it appears to lie along your suggested axis of rotation. However trying to persuade the Anigrand leg to rotate about that axis does not result in it fitting into the fuselage, suggesting that more research into the shape of the leg is required. I feel some wire bending coming on...

Top%20of%20main%20uc%20leg_edited-1_zpsu

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  • 2 weeks later...

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