Does anyone remember the first one man rigger that they ever saw? You might be a bit surprised. Old Bob, The Purist

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On Thursday, September 15, 2022 at 8:11:08 PM UTC+2, [email protected] wrote:

Does anyone remember the first one man rigger that they ever saw? You might be a bit surprised. Old Bob, The Purist

The first 'one man rigger' I ever saw was a YouTube video from <2010 of someone rigging an LS8(?) using nothing but a single roll of foam, similar to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZZIJhyukPw

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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 a
padded 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

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On Thursday, September 15, 2022 at 4:20:28 PM UTC-4, Mike Koerner wrote:

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 a

padded 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

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
to that time. The next invention from the Miami guys was the curved mylar tape, Bennie Flowers was the first to make mylar tape curved so it could conform to the wing flap configuration. Bennie made a machine that was heated by a heat lamp and run over
a curved pipe that conformed the mylar to the perfect bend. Those were the good old days, seems like yesterday, Old Bob, The Purist

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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 tip
lifting 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 talked a bit about it, I called it his "Anita Saver". The one I saw had no adjustment capability. He had it dialed in close enough that will a little adjusting with the jack on the end of the fuselage dolly tracks, he could get the plane together.

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 fore
aft 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 did better there on his and the ones for my brothers, too. But, they all work well if you understand their limitations.

Steve Leonard

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On 9/15/2022 1:20 PM, Mike Koerner wrote:

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 a

padded 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

Wasn't that scary in the wind, with the entire wing area broadside to the wind?

I think I recall the Stower brothers trailers could ordered with a one-man rigging system.
--
Eric Greenwell - USA
- "A Guide to Self-launching Sailplane Operation"
https://sites.google.com/site/motorgliders/publications

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On Thursday, September 15, 2022 at 10:22:53 PM UTC-5, Eric Greenwell wrote:

I think I recall the Stower brothers trailers could ordered with a one-man rigging system.
--
Eric Greenwell - USA

Correct, Eric. Their system was a wing root dolly that once the dolly was at the very back of the trailer, you could walk the tip around to the proper location for installing on the fuselage, then rotate the wing to horizontal and set the tip on a stand
that would allow you to roll the wing spanwise. You then walked back to the root, slid the spar stub out of the dolly, and slipped it into the fuselage. I have this system in their Minden Fab trailer for my Zuni 2. Dolly has two wheels on the floor,
and two in tracks on the side of the trailer. These wheels are captured in a c channel, so the dolly can not tip out of the tracks. Very clever, those Stowers Boys!

Steve Leonard

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On Thursday, September 15, 2022 at 11:28:11 PM UTC-4, Steve Leonard wrote:

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 tip

lifting 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
talked a bit about it, I called it his "Anita Saver". The one I saw had no adjustment capability. He had it dialed in close enough that will a little adjusting with the jack on the end of the fuselage dolly tracks, he could get the plane together.

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 fore

aft 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
did better there on his and the ones for my brothers, too. But, they all work well if you understand their limitations.

Steve Leonard

Alfonso 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
canopy coming off in flight, a truly top Alfonso story. Old Bob, The Purist

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I think Chip Bearden was also producing a different design that "walked" the wingtip around into position, but I never saw one. The first riggers I saw were produced by Udo Rumpf and utilized a European auto jack for vertical adjustment. I started
producing a similar design in the late 90s at the urging of George Applebay, who also set me up building tube type trailers similar to the Schreder and Minden Fabrication trailers. I quit producing the riggers after Steve Koerner came out with his "
WingRigger" design in about 2006 or so. Doing the fiberglass saddle layup was time-consuming and I could never find a supplier that could produce them at a reasonable price, so I probably only built 20 or so. Finally, I purchased the manufacturing rights
to Steve's WingRigger design in late 2014 when he finally got bored, or sick and tired of making them. With the exception of the Bearden tip walker and some other methods like Frank Paynter's tip roller method, most of the designs I have seen resemble
the Udo Rumpf system with a fiberglass cradle mounted on an adjustable wheeled chassis. This just reinforces the concept that aviation "R & D" really stands for "Rip-off and Duplicate."

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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 electrical conduit)
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 vertical)
into the 90 degree position. Then we would strap the sawhorse device to the underside of the wing and roll it horizontal to the point where the wing panel rested on the roller and the spar butt was lined up with the fuselage. I could then pull the spar
butt into the fuselage (easy because it was on a roller). Fore & aft adjustments were made by simply sliding the device fore & aft. It was kind of a "1 & 1/2 man rigger". I sold the device when I sold the glider.

ROY

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On Friday, September 16, 2022 at 1:39:39 PM UTC-4, Roy B. wrote:

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 electrical

conduit) 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
vertical) into the 90 degree position. Then we would strap the sawhorse device to the underside of the wing and roll it horizontal to the point where the wing panel rested on the roller and the spar butt was lined up with the fuselage. I could then pull
the spar butt into the fuselage (easy because it was on a roller). Fore & aft adjustments were made by simply sliding the device fore & aft. It was kind of a "1 & 1/2 man rigger". I sold the device when I sold the glider.

ROY

In the mid-1950s, my father, Stan Smith, designed and fabricated a one-person rigging system for his Schweizer 1-21. Ed Seymour made a sped-up movie of him rigging and de-rigging the ship. NSM has a copy. Nowadays, it takes 4-6 people to rig a 1-21.

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