hard points for jacking

[davzLSA]

Hey Guys, I thought I would start a new thread on the subject of hard points for jacking the bearhawk. There are many questions on this subject that if were answered or discussed would be useful to me and I believe others. Example question would be where to put the hard point, on the landing gear or on the fuse? Would you need to adapt a jack to utilize the hard points? What is your experience and or thoughts on the subject?

[Rollie]

The two reasons I have raised my Patrol are to change tires and to adjust the gear struts. For the tires jacking from the gear would work as long as the jack doesn't get in the way of the tire. Bushwheels are wide and trying to put the jack on the inside part of the gear where the axle mounts to the gear doesn't work well for that. for adjusting the gear struts you need to lift it by the fuselage to take the load off the gear. I have been removing the top engine cowl and lifting it by the engine mount with an engine hoist. That didn't work for installing/removing bushwheels because I couldn't lift it high enough so for that I put a strap on the gear and lifted it from there. Oh and I tie the wings down to stabilize the plane when I do that.

It really depends on what you are going to do. If you are going to just lift one side at a time, jacking it from the fuselage of gear works, with the other two wheels chocked, it can be fairly stable at least for long enough to change a tire or make a gear adjustment. If you want to raise both sides at once you would want to have jacking points on the wings like most certified airplanes have. Cessnas have a deal where you pull 2 or 3 screws just outside the lift strut on the wing and temporally install a jack adapter thing. Of course that setup requires great big jacks but with the jacks about 12 feet apart it is very stable. If you jacked up both sides of the plane from the fuselage, like with the jacks only 3 feet apart it wouldn't take much to knock the plane off the jacks.

[JJohnston]

This video shows (around 1:00) a BH with lifting eyes attached to the wing attach points. This is alaskabearhawk from this forum.

Seems pretty handy, with only a bit of additional work and drag. Of course, you'd have to have a shop crane with a shop around it.

[davzLSA]

thanks for the video, it gave me an idea this combined with Rollies idea makes me think about incorporating a tie down ring with a jacking point at the strut attach point on the wing? An adapter could be bolted up to the tie down point that could be attached to a jack. But that makes me wonder about the stress a jacking would put on this critical point on the wing.