Working on nose gear ?
 

This works real well when working in the area of your nose gear.
The plane is over-center setting on the PVC legs, with a safty strap over the boom down to the golf cart. If you need to know how to unlock the nose gear so you can swing it up by hand, just ask.
Fred N358

gear check
 

Howdy fred: i just use gear switch to raise gear when its tipped on tail. The mains stay put. how do you unlock? JCH

Nose Gear Unlock
 

Master on, gear lever up, extend handle out and pump 3 or 4 times. That will unlock it and it will swing by hand.
Fred N358, 1967 337B

gear
 

hey fred: makes sense. our 73 p has electric and it comes up with switch. sky king tells me i may be damaging boom by pulling down. weight wise its not much pressure getting her tipped back and usually done to inspect/ check gear operation. this may pose less risky than a jack incident . thanks for the picture. likewise glad to know others check their gear operation via boom. jch

In response to all the messages flying around on the newsgroup, I scanned the pages on jacking the nosegear from the maintenance manual for my O2-A. This is the July, 1987 version of the manual.

Here's the diagram that goes with the written instructions.

I found this in my Service/Parts Information manual for my '73 P337. "The nose may be raised, either by jacking with the nose jack or placing weight, such as shot bags, along the stabilizer rear spar." (Page A20, Figure 2-2, Sheet 2 of 2). At least in my year and model, Cessna approves of raising the nose gear by applying weight at the rear.

Mark

Finally!
 

Mark and Mitch:

I haven't checked my e-mail at work for a week, so if this is redundant or wrong, please ignore. However, based upon my recollection from the Yahoo Group e-mails abusing "idiot" folks, will you PLEASE post these messages on the Yahoo board and Peter's Board so we can move on with life? Or at least come close to a finale on this subject. . . .

I know that different year Skymasters and Warbirds were built somewhat differently. However, from the foregoing, it appears that fortunately . . . for all of us who bought "previously owned" Skymasters now know that per Cessna, ALL Skymasters will not mysteriously fall from the sky nor lose all current value if someone who worked on the bird any time during the past life of the bird leaned on the tail to tilt the damn thing to jack the nose (without logging such incident)!

On a much happier and less sarcastic note:

I hope all had as happy as a Thanksgiving as I and my family had and hope you used your Skymaster in your holiday travels as much as my family did. It was truly blue skies!

Keven
________
Jailbroken

I already posted the text out of the O2 maintenance manual. Things seem to have calmed down a bit now.

Mitch

good news
 

the good news from all of this is that I am reminded that I must support the booms when the aircraft is parked outside in winter weather, to prevent snow from weighing down the horizontal stabilizer, and damaging the bottom of the tail.

Good work, folks.

Boom Legs
 

Larry
Have you not made the legs that I E-Mailed you a picture of, I will make you a set if you like for $500.00 or you can make them for $1.95 ha ha.
My 520 Commander set out one winter, it snowed on the tail enough to make it hit the ground, never keep it outside anymore.
Make sure your Skymaster don't do that !!!!!!!
Fred N358

WINTER
 

My skymaster sat outside while we were in Maine, over the Christmas holiday. I was understandably concerned about dropping the tail. We got, on Dec 25 alone, 12.5 inches of snow. More fell after midnight, and in the morning there was about 2 feet on the ground. I went over to the plane around 10 PM, after about 10 inches had fallen, and not one snowflake was on the tail!! The wind was blowing hard enough, that it all blew off!!
I didn't have any of your tail supports with me, but will next time, since I read that Shannon had 2 inches on the horizontal stabilizer of his plane, and the tail dumped on the ground.

I "built" my own support rod for the tail during winter. I bought some small lengths of 1" plumbing pipe (metal) and some PVC joints (double-female joints) of the same size. I have two or three short lengths to screw into the bottom for when I'm parked on non-level ground so that everything touches the ground. I added a PVC piece at the top which allows it to go through the tail tiedown loop where I slip in a connector pin so that it won't come loose. The whole thing is pretty sturdy, but still only about 5 or 6 lbs. I keep it in a little bag in the baggage area and just screw the parts together (about three all told) with the appropriate length short piece at the bottom, and leave it when the aircraft is parked. So let it snow.

Took a little bit of horsing around, but a cheap fix. If you do get your airplane dumped in its tail, it can be expensive. The FBO did that when moving it two years ago without removing the snow from the horiz. stab, and it cost them a couple of grand to replace and repaint the damaged parts.

Tail support.... question....
 

will one side do? Guy, old72driver....