[coreyjon]

Last year, after finishing the gearboxes, I took charge of designing the lifting mechanism. I used the same principle that is found on boat trailers. It worked great. It was only one direction, spring loaded latch. I'll include a picture, keep in mind the latch is back wards in the pic. Perhaps you could use a small pneumatic cylinder to control the latch instead of a spring, or some adaptation of that.