Preventing aircraft with tricycle undercarriage from tail sitting

Magnets

with George L. Johnson (and Geoff C)

The problem

This is an age old problem for scale modellers if ever there was one – how to stop your aircraft that have nose wheels (tricycle undercarriage) from tail-sitting?

OK, for sure you may have the space in the nose to add weight like fishing weights, putty, etc etc and that’s all very well IF you have the space in the forward fuselage and forward of the centre of gravity.

And so what do you do if there is no space, as in the case of the beautiful Zoukei-Mura Do335 in 1:32 scale? The kit is magnificent – I’ve built it and so has George J as you’ll see below; the problem is that there is so much excellent internal detail that there’s no room at all for any meaningful nose weight.

Therein lies the challenge and one that George has taken up and as you’ll see in a moment there’s an incredibly simple and easy fix for it – use magnets!

In a nutshell

All you need to do is get hold of some very small round magnets, drill holes in the underside of your nose wheel and also the base you intend to display your model on and slip in 1-2 magnets. The magnets hold the nose wheel down and hey presto – problem solved – such a brilliant and simple idea I just can’t believe I haven’t seen it before. Okay, maybe some of you know about it, then good luck to you but I didn’t and I’m betting some of you haven’t either so take a look below and off you go!

Target project: Zoukei-Mura Do335 Pheil, 1:32 scale. If you want to see George’s full build, take a look at it here.

The magnets

These come in many different sizes from different manufacturers and I just searched the web for ‘mini magnets’ and came across a number of suppliers and outlets, including eBay.

They are very cheap and easily affordable which is always good. I bought a couple of packs of very small round magnets from Magnet Expert…

Here you can see the packs, one has size 1mm X 1mm and the other 2mm X 1mm and I reckon these will be good for most models. Larger sizes are available so just search for what you need on the websites who supply them.

Tools you’ll need

Very simple really, just the following:

• set of small magnets – pick a size that will fit under and inside your nose wheel tyre. Just one, or maybe 2 magnets will be required

• small pin vice drill and bit to drill your holes

• a metal plate for your base (if not adapting a non-metallic base) to form the base for your model to sit on. The magnet you’ll be adding to your nose wheel will be attracted to the metallic plate (test first to be sure! lol).

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Take a quick look at my video showing the magnets I plan to use – any make will do as long as you can get the size you need.

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Here’s a note from George where he explains his approach

…The magnets are 3mm x 1mm neodynium and can be purchased through eBay. I think they were $10 US for 300 of them. They’re pretty inexpensive and can be used for attaching pylons to wings, closing doors, etc.

3mm translates to approximately .125” so I used that size bur to cut a channel for the magnets to sit perfectly flush on the flattened (bottom) surface of the front tire. Two magnets were inserted and affixed with cyanoacrylate glue.

I attached a photo of the model on top of a metal plate I had in my workshop. One shows the model tipped back and sitting on its tail, the other shows the magnets holding the model down. These little magnets are strong and one would probably have been sufficient.

George J.

…happy days! (GC)