Does anyone remember the first one man rigger that they ever saw? You might be a bit surprised. Old Bob, The Purist
In 1978 I bought in as a partner in my brother, Steve Koerner’s 19-meter Kestrel. At that time he had already developed an excellent single-man system for it. The wings rolled out of the trailer on root dollies. You set the outboard leading edge on apadded sawhorse, flopped the wing down horizontal, then lifted the root up into (actually, onto in this case) the fuselage.
It worked great. The metal sawhorses would break down for storage in the trailer.Good Info!!! The first one man rigger that I saw was built by Alfonso Jurado, that was in the late 70's and was almost identical to the ones that we see today from suppliers. E9, Alfonso, built a few for friends and I still have one today that dates back
Mike Koerner
In 1978 I bought in as a partner in my brother, Steve Koerner’s 19-meter Kestrel. At that time he had already developed an excellent single-man system for it. The wings rolled out of the trailer on root dollies. You set the outboard leading edge on apadded sawhorse, flopped the wing down horizontal, then lifted the root up into (actually, onto in this case) the fuselage.
It worked great. The metal sawhorses would break down for storage in the trailer.
Mike Koerner
I think I recall the Stower brothers trailers could ordered with a one-man rigging system.
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Eric Greenwell - USA
There have been a number of rigging systems over time. There was one in SOARING around 1970 on solo rigging a 16.5 Diamant. Then, Irv Prue and his solo rigging system for his ASW-17. Most of these, like the system Mike described, had root or tiplifting or supporting devices, and you still had to lift the heavy end of the wing with most of them. Alfonso's was the first I saw, with his Ventus. I suspect he had something similar for his -20 before that. I looked at it, and when I saw him, and we
My Dad and I sketched up and built a few for our own use, and these were part of the motivation for the early Mocho riggers. Mark added some features that ours did not have. Udo was also producing something similar, but with more precision in the foreaft control, so great minds must have come to similar conclusions! In my current stockpile, I have one of my own design, one early Mocho, and I think 3 Udo riggers. ark and Udo did a much better job on the trailing edge clamps than I did on mine. And Dad
Steve LeonardAlfonso did have one for the 20, you are correct, it was not adjustable, Alfonso made it work to close tolerances. Alfonso made a few for other people I still have the wing saddle that he made for me. One of these days I am going to tell the story of his
Back in the early 80s I was flying an ASW-17 and needed something to help my wife and I rig the machine which had very heavy inner panels. I designed what was in essence a folding sawhorse with curved & connected legs ( made of curved electricalconduit) and a rubber roller on the top (obtained from a marine trailer outlet). I also made castering fittings for the inner panel outer ends. We would pull a wing panel out, set the root (still on the dolly) on the ground and walk/roll the wing (still
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