The Monnett Monerai has a fixed suspended landing wheel. My mate Richi’s gave his Monerai a wheel without suspension. I’m not a big fan of unsuspended wheels – especially when you have bumpy landings on grass or slopes the forces on the wheel and risks of damage are too big. Most importantly, I thought it would just be nicer to build a suspended landing wheel – also to put the crash-course in CAD drawing that I had in August last year from a flying buddy on a rainy day in Hahnenmoos into practice.

The design of the landing gear is very much based on the well-tested design of our Urupema and Orlik – just smaller, with a 70mm foam wheel. The front and rear bulkhead are 4mm plywood and designed “by hand”. The sides of the gear were designed on QCAD and will be milled from 2.5mm glass fiber. To check if all the bits fit together and are sufficiently stable I first cut them out of 2mm plywood. A flying buddy will mill them out of glass fiber for me next week. The front and rear bulkhead are held together using wooden sticks that are just there for correct positioning and will be removed once the gear is glued into position in the fuselage. The suspension will be bicycle inner tubes.