Lifting the fuselage
It’s time to mount the landing gear. The stand the fuselage has been on for the last ~1.5 years is only about a foot of the ground, so to be able to insert the gear legs, we needed to lift it. After lots of thinking, I figured the best way to do this given the resources we have, is to lift it onto our 5’x2′ workbench. It’s about 8″ excessively high, but good enough.
To do this, we needed help. The process basically worked like this:
- Lift the fuselage off the stand and place the front on our “extra” workbench, while the people in the back held the tail in the air. About 90% of the weight is on the front, so holding the tail while we did all this wasn’t a big deal. By the way, the engine mount makes a great hand hold on the front.
- Get rid of the fuselage stand and put the 5’x2′ workbench in its place
- Carry the fuselage and place it carefully on the workbench.
- Center the fuselage on the workbench.
- Place an a-frame ladder under the tail.
The bottom of the fuselage is curved slightly, so not much of it is actually touching the table. I was a little concerned about damaging the skin, but we made sure the pressure is near the wing spar and used a towel on the table. Should be fine.
Much thanks to Ron (Kelly’s dad) and our friends Adrienne and Brad for the help. There’s no way Kelly and I could have done it ourselves. We’re guessing the fuselage weighs about 400 lbs. at this point, but really don’t know for sure.
