Tips for landing gear on small aircraft?

[cantab]

My plane: https://flic.kr/p/JqdJUK

So I made a little aeroplane. It fits in a Mk3 cargo bay for delivery to another planet and it flies great - stable, insanely agile, flies as slow as 50 m/s or as fast as Mach 0.75, won't break unless I crash it, works with or without a Kerbal. Only problem is, I can't sort the landing gear out. I tried conventional ('taildragger') landing gear with a single small steerable gear at the back and either the fixed 'stick' gear or the smallest rover wheels at front, but in both cases I get a shimmy on the takeoff roll and lose control.

 

I've not tried a tricycle gear but I'd be worried about tailstrikes. I'd consider bicycle gear and use a reaction wheel to keep it balanced, but I can't use only the steerable gear because they have no brakes. I'm not sure if there are any parts I could use as skids that are durable enough but not really heavy, considering the whole plane only weighs about a ton.

Any other ideas? I'd prefer to keep the plane using stock parts, but mods aren't out of the question.

[Alshain]

It's not your gear configuration that is the problem.  That 'shimmy' as you call is is the big problem with landing gear in 1.1.  It's a bug, and there really isn't a good way to fix it.

[Van Disaster]

Cut down friction on the steerable wheel massively ( just manually raise it if you want to actually steer with the wheel ), and try cutting the spring rate a bit while leaving the damping. I tend to double up on main gear with the fixed landing gear.

[ForScience6686]

Have you tried using the rotation gizmo and snap to absolute?  I would also recommend stiffening spring and dampener.  By doing these two things I haven't had gear issues.  

[Val]

Tricycle gear works fine for me and I don't experience shimmying when the gear is properly placed.

• Main load bearing landing gear as close to CoM as possible without the craft tipping on it's tail, is the most important for stability.
• Nose wheel far forward is important for control.

 

I made this test vehicle inspired by your design.

It can lift-off and land at 25 m/s, though 30-35 is recommended.

I probably should have kept the CoM lower or made the landing gear wider.

[cantab]

Thanks for the help all. I found tricycle gear works well after all, with a bit of care I can avoid tailstrikes on takeoff. Opted for rover wheels as mains because I *really* don't trust those fixed landing gear.

I still can't land, but that's pilot incompetence, and I've decided to just take the lazy way and stick a chute on.

[bewing]

I rebuilt your plane as best as I could understand from your pic, as a taildragger. It works fine for me. It takes off by itself at 50 m/s. Lands at 35 m/s or so.

http://www.virtualrealitytoursllc.com/pix/ultralight.craft