I know folding wings on the eagles has been discussed many times before, so although that would be perfect for me, I won't go there. Being old and retired we try to escape those brutal Wisconsin winters by staying in the Ozarks in Missouri. Still gets cold here, but not - 20 or - 30 with - 70 wind chills . There are 11 old pilots like me that went together and formed an LLC and purchased WI50 a small grass strip in Albany WI, just a few miles from EAA 431 Brodhead WI. Works out great, no one has to put a ton of money in, and we all take turns mowing and such. Now while I'm in Missouri there are no airports less than a 45 minuet drive one way, most likely because there are no straight roads. I do have an airport just a few blocks away from me here in Viburnum, MO, but it is owned by the Doe Run Mining Company. This is the lead producing capitol of the world. The rub is, I can land and take off there with permission each time, but I can't keep my plane there. Now to my point, there are several of you that take your planes around the country and assemble and dissemble your wings. Is there an easy way for one person to accomplish this? How long does it normally take?ThanksGil
What are the wings, about 25 pounds ea., the one with the fuel tank a little heaver? I guess if I had two posts like yours with maybe a cross pipe to hold them together, it wouldn't be too big a job for one person. I think I saw where Sam had a handle for picking each wing up.
I see in the old Eagle files a gentlemen built a wing lift using a sheet rock lift design as his model. I have a sheet rock lift I might just convert. Works great for 5/8" 4x8 drywall sheets so should handle my wings OK and my home flipping days are well behind me now.I like the trailer with the fold down sides. There are some very interesting concepts in the file section for working alone. I too would like to travel and be able to fly around a little when I got there. I have a couple of small utility trailers, but the one guy used an old 4 machine snowmobile trailer, which there are plenty of them in Wisconsin. That most likely would be the best choice to convert. Think my neighbor has one I probably could talk him out of. Another idea is to build a sling that could attach to the wing mounts and an attachment, bar, that would go under the wing and hook onto the strut brackets. It wouldn't be hard to fabricate a cherry picker out of PVC or 2x2 for that matter and a bridle. You would still need you water pipe stand, but if the wind isn't blowing you instructions of placing the wing on its end and raising the other end and using lynch pins sounds pretty straight forward and simple. In one of the photos the guy had something similar, but he used a small bench like stand on the root end and a folding stand in place of your water pipe one. What are we using for lynch pins?
I had another thought on how to handle the wing by ones self, even if the grade is a little off or there may be a slight breeze. . You could find the balanced point of your wing and install a couple of blocks like you do for the jury struts but only stick the brackets up through the top of the wing. It wouldn't be difficult to fabricate a Cherry Picker that would slide into your trailer receiver and you could position your wings and raise it to install. A bridle made of light chain and some S hooks should work to get the right angles & balance on the wing so they would line up with the fuselage wing mounts.When I'm waiting for materials to arrive my mind wonders a little.
two 3/8" 3' cold roll rods to use to alien my rear mount. If your holes aren't perfectly in line forward and aft and at the two degree angle, it can be hell to install the bolts in your wing brackets later. . Learned this the hard way with my DE. Before I weld my bushing in, I'll do the same process with two 1/4" rods.
