Wing Rigger

[Dan Marotta]

Unsolicited kudos:

Yesterday was not much of a flying day so my wife and I took a long walk
around the airport at Moriarty. As we approached the hangars of Mark
Mocho and Bob Carlton, we saw them fiddling with an Arcus and stopped in
to chat and watch. They were doing final tasks on a jet engine self
launch package and were preparing to rig it for a weight and balance
and, having read varying opinions on self rigging aids on this board, we
decided to hang around and watch.

The first thing I saw was the polyhedral and multiply swept back leading
edges making handling the wing difficult. Due to the polyhedral, the
wing had to be lifted much higher than normal, almost eyeball high, at
the outboard rib to rig it to the fuselage.

Mark had one of his Wing Riggers to which he'd added a battery powered
linear actuator to aid the gas strut and a wireless remote. How simple
it seemed to stand there and push a button and watch the wing rise to
the proper position. The wide main axle on the Wing Rigger made moving
the wingtip fore and aft a breeze. No lasers, gun sights, or cranes;
just his Wing Rigger. In short order he had both wings installed and
Bob fussed with the main pin to complete rigging. It was fascinating to
watch such a big ship go together so easily!

Nicely done! If I had an Arcus, I'd have a Wing Rigger with a linear
actuator but, alas, I only have a Stemme... :-D
--
Dan, 5J - Not associated with Wing Rigger, just happy to give a plug for
such a functional piece of equipment.

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Gee Dan, thanks for the comment. I personally thought we were running around like Larry and Moe with Curly going "Nit nit nit" in the background. It was only the third time we had rigged the Arcus, so we still don't have the procedure completely figured out. I was surprised to find out from the video we took that, even with the trouble with aligning the wings to get the main pin installed, the total time for the wings, tips and horizontal was only 12 minutes.

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On Friday, September 2, 2016 at 9:50:58 AM UTC-5, wrote:
> Gee Dan, thanks for the comment. I personally thought we were running around like Larry and Moe with Curly going "Nit nit nit" in the background. It was only the third time we had rigged the Arcus, so we still don't have the procedure completely figured out. I was surprised to find out from the video we took that, even with the trouble with aligning the wings to get the main pin installed, the total time for the wings, tips and horizontal was only 12 minutes.

When I built my wing rigger from scratch over 2 years ago, I decided to include a linear actuator for the vertical motion (remote controlled) and later added a gas spring inside the square tubing structure. This was independent from Mark's ideas which he seemed to put into his design at about the same time. When in Moriarty last year, Mark kindly acknowledged that I had gotten things right. The rigger is surprisingly efficient in shortening assembly times. You can't beat standing at the fuse and just pushing buttons on your remote until the spar bushings line up. Buy Mark's designs and you will be a happy 'wing rigger'.
Herb