Toe in Tricycle Gear- Mains

[Vision401]

Gentlefolk,
I have been trying to find all over the net "engineering how to" on how one sets the main gear on tricycle main gear. I have asked at my quite inactive EAA chapter and the only help was, "I built a RV tri-gear and they didn't say anything about it, I just installed the gear..." http://eaaforums.org/images/icons/shocked.gif
As I am building a plans built aircraft of 1500# gw and a landing speed of 55mph, it didn't have anything to say either about toe in. When I built my Varieze, I was directed to 1/2 to 1 degree toe-in and that was fine and I had pretty even tire wear when that was verified.
I am not looking to reprise the tail dragger controversy of toe-in as that is discussed all over the net. If that is your experience, please don't respond to this opening post. Did Tony Bingelis address this in any of his books? It's not in "Firewall Forward" as I have that and of course, the main gear is not forward of the firewall http://eaaforums.org/images/icons/wink.gif.

In the event of no engineering to be reviewed, I would set it at 1/4° to 1/2° Toe-in and then test fly and see the effect of tire wear and landing and take off control.

Alan Laudani, Vision EX, Shady Cove, OR

[Cary]

I would think that depending on what your gear is made of (spring steel, tubular, etc.) that you might get some guidance by comparing it to a similarly made certificated airplane, such as a C150 or C152, both of which weigh roughly 1500 lbs, also. I don't know their specs, but that would be easy to find.

Cary

[flyrgreen]

I needed to do this on a tri-gear refurb. 2 A&P's told me that 1 degree toe-in is fine for almost every application. The trick is that you want that 1 degree when the plane is near max weight & on the ground, not when the wheels are off the hangar floor on a jack.