For transportation reasons, the outer wing sections had been removed and at about 15' each putting these back on would give Charlie Fox her full stretch of 145' in width.

Even though aircraft are made from very strong yet lightweight components, these outer wings were far too heavy to be lifted by hand. Luckily for us a 2.5 ton lift came with the support gear and using this in conjunction with safety raisers and various blocks of wood we were able to line up the sections well enough that they could be bolted back on.

To give some impression of size, each of the outer wing sections contain a fuel tank capable of holding some 460 gallons of fuel. That's quite a lot!

It had taken us quite some time to figure out how on earth Mick Bates had unbolted the outer wings in the first place since there appeared to be no access at all. Luckily, Roger remembered Mick having said that he could only work for 20 minutes at a time before he had to come out for air. Bingo! This confirmed that Mick had come in through the fuel tank in the main wing.

The unstoppable Eric Tarrant immediately volunteered for the job and with help from Dave Myles they soon had the access panel off and Eric was in. Eric spent hours in the wing while we struggled to line up the outer sections, and it was a very hot day too. I really have to take my hat off to Eric for going well beyond the call of duty! I didn't realise just how unpleasant it was in there until the following weekend when I made the same trip to put the final bolts in and to tighten things up.

There's no graceful way in...

And once in, you wonder how you'll get out.

Inside...

With both outer wings now bolted on, it just remains to replace the band of rivets that run around the joint. Definitely a job for another day.