Minden Trailer Manual?

Bought a Libelle with a Minden trailer. Yesterday was our first
attempt to disasemble and place the bird in the trailer. Had a few
problems, mostly based on ignorance . . . anyway, does anyone have a
source for a manual for Minden trailers or some information on how to
use one? I think we figured it out finally, but would like to see
something official to be sure we are doing it right.

On Oct 11, 11:39*am, Dave White wrote:
Bought a Libelle with a Minden trailer. *Yesterday was our first
attempt to disasemble and place the bird in the trailer. *Had a few
problems, mostly based on ignorance . . . anyway, does anyone have a
source for a manual for Minden trailers or some information on how to
use one? *I think we figured it out finally, but would like to see
something official to be sure we are doing it right.

I had/used one for 15 years but never saw a manual for one. I have no
idea how many variations of fittings there were but my wing root
fittings were set up to use the single man rig system. That design
had a weakness. The wing root fittings ran on one track on the side
wall and one track on the floor. With age the floor sagged where the
fuselage dolly sat and changed the geometry between the side and floor
rails. This allowed the root fitting front wheels to jump out of the
tracks which is very inconvenient. The problem is compounded because
the solo rig design required the root fitting to extend beyond the
trailer tracks which means the root weight is not all between the
wheels and tends to make the front wheels of the root fitting rise
when the wing is pulled out of the trailer. (the fitting design allows
the wing to be pulled out, swung round nearly 90 deg to the trailer,
then rotated flat, all before the spar is removed from the trailer
fitting)

If your wing root fittings use the same arrangement suggest after you
rig you run each root fitting up and down the track and make sure it
cannot separate. Holding the wing tips as high as possible without
hitting the end of the trailer helps to stop the wheels jumping out.
Careful adjustment of the wheel offsets helps. I ended up resorting
to drilling out the track rivets and shimming the tracks away from the
floor in the sag area The proper fix would probably have been to
eliminate the floor sag.

I never had, or used, the solo rig wing support so can't give you any
advice on that.

Andy

I had a Minden Fab trailer with a Grob 104. It was a one-man rigging
set-up. For the Grob, it was a very good one-man rigging system. I
had no problems with floor sag or the dollies jumping the tracks.
However, the system depends upon having very stable wing stands, more
like saw horses than the typical three legged type in use.

You would pull the fuse out first.
You then pulled your wing out to the very end of the track. There was
a very secure stop to the dolly and I never had the dolly jump either
the track or run off the end of the track. Once the wing was fully
out of the trailer you kept it in the upright position and walked it
out, pivoting on the rotating spar support until the wing tip was
about where it would be when the wing is installed in the fuse. The
wing was then rotated flat and laid on the wing support. My wing
supports were four legged sawhorse type units that had carpet on the
top. Then I would walk back to the trailer and loosen the wing nuts
that secured the spar to the dolly, pull the spar out of the dolly
mount, and walk the spar to the fuse. Then you just slid the spar
into the fuse.

The system depended on the wing stands being made the correct height.
The system depended on the wings stands being stable enough to allow
you to slide the wing back and forth on the stand without the stand
tipping or moving. The you repeat the process with the other wing.

The final adjustments to align the spar ends was done by raising and
lowering the fuse rather than the more conventional manner or raising
and lowering the now popular oneman rigging wing stands.

Good luck.
Oh yah...the builders still exist in Minden. Tom Stowers and his
brother Billie. They don't make trailers anymore but they built the
darn things.

Guy