Airfoil Gear - Skydesigns vs ALG (Grove)?

[StickyTeflon]

I'm ready to pull the trigger on upgraded AL Airfoil landing gear (weight savings + aesthetics), but am having difficulty deciding between SkyDesigns and Aircraft Landing Gear. I understand ALG is now producing the original Grove gear now, but while Grove discontinued and before they took over, SkyDesigns started producing their own.

Does anyone know the difference between the two? I can't find any meaningful comparison write-ups, or side-by-side photos, etc. Even pricing is almost the exact same, and I haven't seen a single bad (or even neutral) review of either - everyone seems to love them both.

Anybody have some insight? Thanks!

RV-8 Aluminum Airfoil Landing Gear Kit | skydesigns

www.skydesigns.aero

RV-8 RV-14 - Landing Gear Corp. (LGC)

Now available- RV-8 air-foiled machined Aluminum landing gear, standard features include 3-d machined airfoiled and gun drilled brake lines. Significant […]

aircraftlandinggear.com

 

[Quotafiller]

samesies

 

[rv8ch]

I have the Grove gear, and it works great. If I were buying today, I'd buy the Skydesigns solution just cuz Ken is a good guy.

 

[TS Flightlines]

I have the Grove gear, and it works great. If I were buying today, I'd buy the Skydesigns solution just cuz Ken is a good guy.

WE recently acquired an LGC RV14A gear leg for mock up purposes. Its a 'demo version'; we are using it to do mockups for Beringer installs. We 'borrowed' an axle and caliper from Beringer, to play with, and will have them at our booth at Oshkosh. Booths 947-949 in the LSA area. Same spots as always, but with a different look this year!

 

[Laird]

+1 for Sky Designs. Nice product and Ken is a good guy, and the chief designer of the RV-8, so he understands the loads very well.

Here's mine as when I was working on the wheel pants

 

[Sky Designs]

I'm ready to pull the trigger on upgraded AL Airfoil landing gear (weight savings + aesthetics), but am having difficulty deciding between SkyDesigns and Aircraft Landing Gear. I understand ALG is now producing the original Grove gear now, but while Grove discontinued and before they took over, SkyDesigns started producing their own.

Does anyone know the difference between the two? I can't find any meaningful comparison write-ups, or side-by-side photos, etc. Even pricing is almost the exact same, and I haven't seen a single bad (or even neutral) review of either - everyone seems to love them both.

Anybody have some insight? Thanks!

RV-8 Aluminum Airfoil Landing Gear Kit | skydesigns

www.skydesigns.aero

RV-8 RV-14 - Landing Gear Corp. (LGC)

Now available- RV-8 air-foiled machined Aluminum landing gear, standard features include 3-d machined airfoiled and gun drilled brake lines. Significant […]

aircraftlandinggear.com

Hi Sticky! A couple of summers ago when ocean-crossing rock-star Hermann Schiele (a.k.a. Super Cub Driver) dropped-into our Anacortes hangar with his Grove equipped RV-8, we snapped the attached side-by-side photo. Functionally the same but there is a subtle difference in cross section between the two.

The Sky Designs leg uses straight-thread O-Ring Boss (ORB) fluid fittings rather than tapered-thread AN fluid fittings - see attached photo. Because the O-ring is the seal, these can be clocked to any orientation whereas AN fittings need to be torqued to seal well and the "ideal" clocking doesn't always occur at the "ideal" torque. David Howe (a.k.a. HFS) was the impetus for this.

FWIW, 12-point NAS1804-6 nuts are included in the SD kit. This will make Steve Smith (a.k.a. scsmith) smile. Kits are on the shelf and ready to ship.

 

[scsmith]

The comparison picture posted by Ken shows that the Sky Designs gear has a complete airfoil cross section. The Grove gear is rounded on the front, wedge shaped on the back, and flat in the middle.

 

[StickyTeflon]

Hi Sticky! A couple of summers ago when ocean-crossing rock-star Hermann Schiele (a.k.a. Super Cub Driver) dropped-into our Anacortes hangar with his Grove equipped RV-8, we snapped the attached side-by-side photo. Functionally the same but there is a subtle difference in cross section between the two.

The Sky Designs leg uses straight-thread O-Ring Boss (ORB) fluid fittings rather than tapered-thread AN fluid fittings - see attached photo. Because the O-ring is the seal, these can be clocked to any orientation whereas AN fittings need to be torqued to seal well and the "ideal" clocking doesn't always occur at the "ideal" torque. David Howe (a.k.a. HFS) was the impetus for this.

FWIW, 12-point NAS1804-6 nuts are included in the SD kit. This will make Steve Smith (a.k.a. scsmith) smile. Kits are on the shelf and ready to ship.

That comparison pic is EXACTLY what I've been looking for, and the notes are exactly what I needed to make a decision - thank you!

This thread quickly sold me on the Sky Designs, thank you everyone.

 

[HomebuiltsRule]

First, a quick introduction to share my background and connection to these RV AL gear. In 2025, I took over the landing gear operations of Grove Aircraft, which we have renamed Aircraft Landing Gear Co. (LGC). (Please note: this does not include the wheel and brake division, which was sold to Game Aerospace).

While I wasn't directly part of the original Grove organization, my history with them goes back 34 years. I actually built the very first aluminum landing gear in Robbie Grove’s shop for my own homebuilt project. A week later, Grove was officially in the landing gear business! Over the decades since, I have stayed involved in few Grove landing gear designs and various other projects.


Grove stopped manufacturing the RV-8 aluminum gear legs for several years due to other business obligations. After taking over the operations, we completely revamped the highly successful RV-8 legacy design.

Here is how the two options compare:

SkyDesigns RV-8 Kit: SkyDesigns makes a good gear. It is a duplicate of the older, legacy Grove aluminum gear design which features a flat section in the airfoil. If you choose to polish the gear, it can help soften the appearance of this flat section.


Aircraft Landing Gear Co. (LGC) New Kit: For our revamped version, we completely modernized the design. It features a newly optimized airfoil shape contour (no more flat section) and a more tapered gear leg. This results in less aerodynamic drag, a much cleaner look, and a weight reduction of 3.2 lbs compared to the legacy RV-8 aluminum gear. Most of this weight savings comes from the increased taper at the axle end, reducing the width from 4" down to 2.8". Because this reduction is predominantly outside the primary load path, the stresses remain very low at the axle end of the gear.



The differences in the new LGC airfoil contours can be clearly seen in the attached photos. For context, the pictures below show the SkyDesigns gear that I actually removed from my own personal RV-8 project, side-by-side with our new LGC RV-8 gear.



We perform almost all of our work in-house. 3D machining on a large gantry mill, gun drilling internal brake lines, and bending.The only steps we outsource to specialized partners are the heat treatment,

Home - Landing Gear Corp. (LGC)

Spring Aluminum Landing Gear. Discover precision-engineered landing gear tailored for over 1,000 aircraft types, prioritizing quality and pilot satisfaction.

aircraftlandinggear.com

I hope this helps BTW , I may not be as nice as Ken??

 

[RV8JD]

FWIW, my previous RV-8 has the original non-airfoil Grove AL landing gear. That airplane has about 2600 hours on it, and there has been no problems with the gear.

My current RV-8 has the airfoil Grove AL gear. The airplane has 1740 hours on it, and there has been no problems with that gear either.

And let’s just say both sets of the Grove gear have been well tested on those two RV-8’s!

Probably can’t go wrong with either the LGC gear (which is slightly different from the airfoil Grove gear, as described above) or the Sky Designs gear.