MiG-31B/BS WIP 2

The original gear strut and bogey depicts the landing gear with ground load. It was more complicated when compared to my previous builds.  

There are seams between the halves of main gear struts. Need filling! 

The main undercarriages of MiG-31 was unique. Each of the undercarriages consists of the main strut and a two-wheel-bogey. The main wheels are placed in a staggered way, each of which has a single shock absorber piston. Modification focused on the bogey mainly. Here is the drawing of main gear bogey with ground load and without ground load.

When modified. The bogey should be cut into two pieces. The forward part carries the forward wheel, and the aft part carry the aft wheel. Absorber pistons and link mechanism are re-positioned as without-ground-load-configuration 

Photos in maintenance shop shows MiG-31 aircraft jacked. This photo was derieved from a YouTube clip, which shows the structure of main gear bogeys clearly (without wheels) 

Here are some WIP photo of modifying MiG-31 main undercarriages to depict an aircraft in air, with gears down and locked.

1, I removed the link mechanism temperorily to make it easier to cut the main gear trolly apart
2, The main gear trolly were modified to a 'no ground load' configuration.
3, Place the shock absorb piston of the forward wheels in extended configuration
4, re-install the link mechanism and aft wheel pistons 

Main gear: link mechanisms re-installed 

The wheels are configured in a staggered tandem way. A good practice to make the giant MiG-31 aircraft adapt to rough runways (runways with low PCN numbers) 

The forward part of bogey sits slight more than 90 degrees to the main gear strut when viewed from side when the A/C is in the air 

The nose gear has a trailing link suspension with a mud-guard. I studied some photos to determine the length of exposure of mirror-finished-piston. Approximately 4 millimeters for 1/48 scale. 2 millemeters in diameter.

This photo depicts my first try with it. I mistakenlly used a 1.2 millemeter steel tube instead. This tube was later replaced with a 2-mm-diameter one 

The MiG-31 is a huge interceptor aircraft which weighs more than 40 tons when takeoff. It needs tremendous brake force when operated from runways with low PCN numbers. The nose wheels also have brake assemblies and 3 rotors and 4 stators are shown in this snap screen from YouTube footage 

As I re-configured the nose strut into in-the-air position. It really needs some strength as I cut the torsion links, trailing link and shock strut apart. I drilled 1-mm-diameter holes and placed thin steel tubes as the backbone of the nose gear assembly 

A temporary mock up with all control surfaces, canopy and R-40 missiles in place as a tryout of what it would be like in future in my cupboard 

this is one of the earliest photos I took when modifying MiG-31 main undercarriages. I had reposition the bogeys and added a short stainless steel tube to each of the bogeys. Connection links are also repostioned. I also planted some metal pins inside the bogey to make evey part hold together firmly 

The shock piston for the aft wheel had been cut, I was planning to replace it with metal tubes and finally I did it 

Bogeys without wheels. This photos shows clearly how the bogeys were like when MiG-31 is in the air 

The replacement metal tube was 3mm in diameter and 4mm in length approximately. I did not remember the exact dimensions