One-man rigging aids - is the electric up/down control worth it?

My new club seems to have a culture of rig in April and derig in October! Personally I prefer to rig and derig for each flight, unless I know that there is a run of several days good weather and I'm available to fly. I have covers (Cloud-dancers) but I really don't think they offer the protection against UV that is needed for leaving it outdoors for long periods.

Anyhow, as a consequence, it's not always easy to get help to rig/de-rig so I'm thinking of getting a on-man rigging aid. It seems that I can get one from IMI for about €900 that is manually-adjustable for height and sideways alignment, or I could pay around €1500 for an electrically-adjustable version. I'm happy to pay for the more expensive one, if it's worth it. So, if any of you have any experiences/opinions, I'd be happy to hear them!

Thanks in advance.

Oh - the glider is an LS8 and it's in a Cobra trailer, if that helps.

My homemade one has a manual tongue jack incorporated...shouldn't cost a tenth of that.

On Sunday, 2 June 2019 16:20:36 UTC+1, wrote:
My homemade one has a manual tongue jack incorporated...shouldn't cost a tenth of that.

Do you have any pictures? I've not got extensive workshop facilities but I'm not averse to a bit of DIY. I don't have any welding equipment (or skills!) so that might be a challenge.

Dear Paul:
I do have a photo, just e-mail me directly.
The tongue jack section, sans wheel, is inserted in between the wing cuff and axles. It all breaks down by pulling clevis pins, so the individual sections aren't so heavy. It's steel, which gives it a lower cg, very hard to drop a wing. Almost re-did it aluminium before the light bulb came on!

I've rigged my Mosquito with nothing at all (never de-rigged it that
way) and there are videos online to show you how.Â* But that's not what
you asked.

My take is that it's nice, but not worth the extra cost.Â* With my
LAK-17a (many years later), I had a home made rigging tool that was
manually adjustable for height and fore/aft movement and I found that it
was tedious to run back and forth making minor adjustments. What I
learned after a few times rigging the ship was that the wings needed to
be at a specific height to push them in and at another specific height
to insert the pins.Â* I simply made marks on my wing stands for those two
heights and bolted the rigging tool to the height required to slip the
spar ends into the fuselage tunnel.

It was then simple to adjust the wing stands to the "insert" position
and slide the wings home, re-adjust the stands to the "pins" position
and insert the pins.

If age or strength are the driving reasons, the powered lift might be
just the ticket.Â* Last week my Stemme was used to demonstrate one of
Mark Mocho's electric riggers for a customer.Â* It was surprisingly easy
how it was to install the outer wing panel.

On 6/2/2019 8:45 AM, Paul Kaye wrote:
Oh - the glider is an LS8 and it's in a Cobra trailer, if that helps.

--
Dan, 5J

Sometimes, there's a better way :-) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcRipsiPgdk

See also: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!to...ng/jJheTqvVZkg

best,
Evan

I've used a few riggers. My favourite for single seaters was the Udo Rumpf - with the lateral adjustment option. He pased away and nobody bought his tooling (even though it was offered pretty cheap).
For the Duo we've used the Cobra electric and now have the IMI electric.
The IMI is fantastic, and not very heavy. The battery lasts longer than the larger battery in the much heavier worm-drive Cobra.
I own a Cobra manually adjusted rigger, used it on LS4, LS6, ASW27 and G29. Like the Udo, I like the crank.
Have used the WingRigger, it's nice and light. The three-wheel setup is nice in most situations, but am not a fan of the gas strut type, especially rigging on uneven ground. The (original) plastic wheels can fail if used on heavy wings. Believe Mark changed that.
In the grass or dirt you need to adjust more than on paved surfaces.
Adjustment is also a bit of a hiccup with old the style (even JS3 mwent back to it) spars with a single pin and spar-end spiggots. At least with the Libelle (we had a WingRigger for that) you can see wht is misaligned and there is "the tool".
The Duo often needs a bit of a wiggle. Rigging aids don't wiggle well.
With any solo rigger, an alignment device (cam or pry bar type) is very handy.
The cam type that MM Fabrication has is perhaps the best. Cobra second best I've used.
Jim

That's quicker than I can rig the Stemme!Â* It takes me around 9 minutes,
but I have a lot farther to walk to the wing tips and I have to manually
connect the outer sections of the flaperons! :-D

On 6/2/2019 10:08 AM, Tango Eight wrote:
Sometimes, there's a better way :-) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcRipsiPgdk

See also: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!to...ng/jJheTqvVZkg

best,
Evan

--
Dan, 5J

On Sunday, 2 June 2019 17:08:28 UTC+1, Tango Eight wrote:
Sometimes, there's a better way :-) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcRipsiPgdk

See also: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!to...ng/jJheTqvVZkg

best,
Evan

Wow - I wonder if I could make that work? I've never tried rotating the wings whilst the roots are still on the trailer dollies, but if it works that I can see that this method would be an option.
Thanks!