It would be nice to believe that the models own undercarriage could take the load of a landing but with my flying its just not going to happen. The kits undercarriage is quite beefy but it has got weaknesses particularly around the wheel stub axles.

I looked at ways of strengthening the undercarriage but could see where breaks would occur. The decision was to either dispense with the models parts and make up a complete undercarriage to match it, or keep the kits parts and supplement it with something else.

I decided to make up a set of skids to act as the undercarriage fabricated from scratch using 1.5mm hollow brass tube and 0.3mm brass plate. The rational for skids as opposed to wheels is of course weight.

I made up two individual skids one to act as the main undercarriage the other to act as nose undercarriage. I designed them both to protrude lower than the models undercarriage to protect them from damage. The main undercarriage was also designed wider than the models to provide a more stable stance during take off and landing. I examined the model to see where the undercarriage could be fitted / glued and made templates in tracing paper of the brass attachment plates.

I cut out the attachment plates from the brass plate with a pair of scissors as it is quite thin. Brass tube is easily bent into shape with a pair of pliers, this I did for each element of the main undercarriage.