Airplane Hang Ups

I have this really cool Airfield T28 that I munched (on its maiden) and just recently put all back together.  Its been sitting around just waiting for hanger rash.  To resolve this, I decided to build something to hang it from the ceiling of my garage.

I didn't want to string it up with any sort of cord or wire and risk dents in the foam so I decided to come up with some sort of PVC rack.  I have seen various renditions of this on the Internet and decided to assemble one of my own.  Incidentally, I put this all together from spare parts I had in my garage (that cheep Dutchman coming out in me again).

To put this together, I started with a rough plan and measurements.  I estimated how far apart the support sections needed to be to come within the landing gear and still outside the fuselage.  Then I also made allowances for the wing width for the length of the supports.  For the drop sections, I figured that I would need enough length so that neither the canopy or the rudder would hit the ceiling.  I put this all down on paper (a bill envelope, I'm sure we all have those easily on hand) and mulled over what fittings I would need.

With the length of 3/4 inch pipe I had on hand and the fittings, this is what I came up with.

I didn't have enough elbows so I used T fittings instead for the top cantilever piece and to connect the support arms to the drop sections.










You can get a better idea of how the T fittings were used as elbows from this angle.  Also, since I had two 22 1/2 degree elbows, I decided to use them for end caps.  It's not like the plane would slide off without these, but I just thought it looked better.

Here's what it looks like setting near my plane.  These two pictures were taken before I cut down the width of the top.  You can see that the down sections are squeezed together at the bottom to fit in between the landing gear.  I cut out a half inch from each of the short sections at the top to resolve this miscalculation.

From this side view you can see that it should support the wings just fine and give enough clearance for the rudder (once lifted up).

Here's what it looks like mounted to the ceiling in my garage.  I used plumbers tape and molly screws to secure everything.

At this point everything is still dry fit together.  I figured that if I can't pull it apart to glue it, it ain't comin' apart!

Now it's all safe and sound out of the way of everyone and there should be no problems with hanger rash.  That is as long as I don't need my ladder out of the garage again.

Thanks for stopping by my blog.  Please feel free to post comments, good or bad, and be sure to come back and check for future posts.