First I place 8 or 10" lengths of 4x4's with soft towels wrapped around the wood on a pair of good quality hydraulic floor jacks (not bottle jacks, but the type your car mechanic uses)  

Then positioning the blocks just inboard of the inner gear doors with the handles pointed so they will clear the fuselage forward of the leading edges of the wings.  I start jacking -alternating from side to side - the plane until the tail is high enough off the floor to place a saw horse with a soft pad forward of the rudder.  At this point the mains are slightly off the floor and the nose tire is still on the floor.

Then I place bags of shot on the horizontal stabilizer as close as possible to the vertical until there is sufficient weight to

set the ventral fin solidly on the saw horse.  Takes about 150 # in my case.

At this point the nose gear is now off the floor.  Then continue jacking until there is sufficient clearance to cycle the gear.

If you want to leave the plane jacked up for extended periods, place lengths of 2x4's in the jacks to prevent them from collapsing.

Reverse the process to get the plane back down on the floor.  

Pete Cavitt - N320PL

LNC-235/320

On Jun 22, 2010, at 19:05, PatHABU@aol.com wrote: