What a great day at the hangar today. Miss Tango now has legs!
I spent a good deal of the week prior working out how to raise the fuselage up high enough to get the landing gear legs in, and eventually came up with the plan you see in the pictures below.
First I jacked up the rear section of my wooden fuselage trolley, then screwed timbers to it to hold it in the air. Next I used my engine hoist to raise the front section. This meant I could cut the fuselage trolley and just leave the rear section in place. I then raised the front high enough to fit a hydraulic lift table underneath. It was then an easy process to raise the fuselage up enough to get the gear legs in.
Installing the gear legs was actually a lot easier than I was expecting. I cleaned up all surfaces and spayed with lithium grease to help with sliding the legs into the weldment. I got the bolt holes lined up pretty close with my eye-ometer, and then used a drift pin to centre so I could knock the bolts in.
Using the existing fuselage trolley to support the empennage
Engine hoist and table lift to support the main fuselage
