On Aug 8, 11:42*am, Andy wrote:
I noted in John's USA team Blog that he lowers the gear before
rigging. I know other pilots do this too. I have to ask why.

For modern glass gliders and Cobra trailers ...

Reasons for leaving the gear up until the wings are on:

1. If gear is down and a hydraulic trailer jack bleeds down the
fuselage may fall over and be damaged.

2. If gear is down the fuselage is about 6 inches higher so the crew
has to lift the wing tips 6 inches higher to rig.

3. If solo rigging there is more freedom to adjust the fuselage height
to insert the main pins.

Reasons for putting the gear down:

None that I know of - please enlighten me.

Andy

Story time;
About 6 or 8 years ago, Bob Epp was getting ready to assemble his
ASW-24. He pulled the fuselage, lowered the gear, and went off to do
something else, leaving the canopy open.

You guessed it!- the hydraulic jack crept down, the fuselage fell
over, and a piece of the canopy about the size of a basketball got
blown out of the canopy.

What would you do?

Well Bob calmly went over to his neighbor who also had a '24 and
calmly said "My canopy is broken, can I borrow yours?

We fell over laughing. The good news is we were able to glue it back
together well enough to fly it.

Moral of the story is there are, as you said, several good reasons not
to put the gear down till the wings are on, and not too many for
putting it down.

Cheers
UH