Made two nice large air layers from my very vigorous in ground Chicago Hardy fig. After 8 weeks seemed to have nice roots (the size of a fist) and I carefully potted three days ago. One is about 4 feet and the other curled over but probably 3 feet tall. The leaves are wilted although the pots are in a nice shady spot with just a little sun. Are wilting leaves on a large air layer ok after a few days? I also made a smaller RDB air layer about a foot tall and its leaves look fine. Could the CH air layer be too large and roots struggling to support them? Any ideas? Thanks

that's not a really big air layer,considering the girth of the branch.
alll you have to do is cut the leaves away and leave only top 2-3 of each branch (if there are branches other than the main one). it will grow new ones in no time.

If the leaves are turgid in the morning after an evening watering then it just needs watering several times a day until it can grow more roots. Or you can cut off some leaves as suggested and wait for it to grow more.

Keep in shade, mist several times per day and cut some leaves in half

I've done lots of ALs bigger than that but, I agree, a fist-sized root ball is relatively small for that sized AL.  

Selecting from the suggestions above: (1) water frequently, (2) store in complete shade until leaves firm up, (3) mist leaves in dry weather.  Clipping leaves and branches is a last resort, if wilting persists 3-4 days.  

Also, you can create a humidity dome in essence by putting the whole plant in a pot/container and cover the top with some type of plastic.  I had an air layer last year that the leaves were wilting on me.  I didn't want to remove the leaves or cut the leaves.  I put the whole plant in a 5 gallon bucket, put sticks into the pot to hold a layer of clear plastic above the leaves and covered the whole thing with the sheet of plastic.  I slowly let in air.  If the leaves showed signs of distress I put the plastic back.  If memory serves, it only took a couple of weeks for the air layer to not wilt when the plastic was off.  Didn't lose a leaf.

If your leaves are in the "crunchy" stage, this may not work for you.

Good luck with it.

Water, put in shade, trim most leaves off. Should be good to go a week after uppotting.

All good advice. I've done several large AL's, including many non-fig trees. I agree that the root ball should have been bigger for that size AL. For now, I would remove all the figs from the AL (not sure I saw that advice above). You can leave one or two at most. I would also remove some of the leaves (larger ones first). They will likely fall off anyway with that root base. Other than that, follow the shade, watering, and misting recommendations.

CliffH

Thanks everyone for the helpful advice.

I had similar situation when I removed the airlayer prematurely. I repotted it in a pot and put it in the shade.  Leaves were druppy for about 2 weeks, after that it grew a ton of new leaves.  3 Weeks later it is now in ground growing new leaves and even having 2 figs on.

Check out my post on bagging air layers. This method never fails. I do huge air layers! The post is title Large Air layers & sweating trees