I agonized over how best to raise the airframe to install the gear legs. I gathered some family muscle to lift it up onto a workbench, but aborted the attempt after it became clear we couldn’t do the lift with enough control.
I borrowed a 500kg lift table, removed the handle, and made up a frame that provided support under both the main and rear spar. I wanted a backup in case there were any problems with the lift table, so I crudely extended the forks on the tractor, added a bit of padding, and held these an inch below the airframe, as shown. As it turns out, the table did fine and the tractor was not required.
I fitted the left main gear leg and wheel, then had to cut the old dolly apart (committed at this point!) to get it out of the way and fit the right main gear leg and wheel. After fitting the nose gear, I let the table down and the fuselage settled in a nose high position (because of the missing engine weight). It looks awkward like this, but it’s still quite a milestone to get it up onto the gear.
