While the photo may appear to show these chaps doing things the hard way, they are , in fact, doing it the Boeing design way. The 47 is designed to be operable without any ground support and, therefore needs to be accessible from the ground after being secured for the night - i.e. NO ladders left extended. To allow for this, there is a grab handle built into the rear of the nose-leg which, together with a leg stretch onto the tyre, allows one to 'pop' the hatch release and open the lower 41 access hatch. Once open it is fairly easy to grab the edges of the hatch and lift oneself through without having to lower the ladder. Until this time last year, I used to perform this regularly as a 'demo' for the walkround introduction for new pilots ....... and my shoulder muscles have almost recovered.
