About five years back I got interested in finding an alternative to the bungee sprung landing gear shocks. I was looking for something that was more tunable as to preload and spring rate. There were some very interesting shocks being used on sand buggies and other off road atv's but nothing quite fit the Skyote. That led to my design of a shock which used a stack of urethane bushings in compression. This was indeed tunable for preload and spring rate. The design seems to function fine but has not been flown. The only shortcoming was the continuing lack of rebound damping.
I recently stumbled across an ad in Barnstormers for TK1 Racing shocks that have all of the features I want! Since I was first looking, TK1 has discovered the market for fully functional aircraft shocks for the experimental aircraft and now offers quite a few models. Tony at TK1 was able to assemble a set of shocks for the Skyote using mostly standard parts, just a custom clevis on the top end.
They are nitrogen pressurized and oil damped on the rebound. They are dimensionally interchangeable with the stock shocks, look good and being all aluminum, weigh almost the same the same as stock. The nitrogen pressure will be adjusted for proper ride height when the airplane is at "Taxi Weight". I hope to be able to give a flight test report in the next few months.
TK1 Racing shock installed on #88.
Top: Stock shock.
Middle: My design.
Bottom: TK1 Racing shock.
Installed on the Skyote.
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