Anybody have any experience with hauling a Highlander long distances, the minimum dimensions required, and how to set up a car hauler or other enclosed trailer for easy loading and unloading? Other advice welcome.

I went and looked a highlander a local guy is building. He said he had to have a custom enclosed trailer built to fit the width of the tail. Said it cost him $10k. Basically an enclosed car trailer but wider. Pretty cool and was my plan before I decided to get a bigger plane.

Search "Aircraft Trailers" on barnstormers and you will find an ad for someone making what you are after. There are some pictures on the ad. Here is the text...


2013 CUSTOM AIRCRAFT TRAILERS • $5,295 • BEST DEAL EVER! • We now offer 105" wide enclosed trailers! Highlanders, Kitfox, Onex, Avid Flyer, Rans, Zenith, Kolb, Remos, Vans RV, Challenger, Trikes, Euro Fox, Gyro copter, helicopter lgt sport/ultralight aircraft. Standard 8.5' W 24' L 7' H, aero-soft V-Nose, 3500 lb axles. 15" Bias Ply Tires. 32"Side door, ramp loading door w/ 8'2" wide and 6'7" high opening. Dome light Side vents/no fumes. Perfect for the roll in/roll out and go fly pilots. Warranty. Can deliver. Tie down at the airport as a hangar or tow it home after flying. Options: 5200# axels, Cable-less Torsion ramp door, e-track and much more! • Contact Mark Sorenson, Owner - located Senoia, GA USA • Telephone: 678-463-5944 • Posted April 15, 2013 • Show all Ads posted by this Advertiser • Recommend This Ad to a Friend • Email Advertiser • Save to Watchlist • Report This Ad • View Larger Pictures • Finance New Lower Rates!

Make sure you run a comparison calculation for putting the wings and tails in one crate, and the fuselage (landing gear removed and stored in cockpit) in another crate, and then shipping both crates motor or rail freight.

Building and shipping a plastic covered 2x4 crate is how most of the manufacturers get the welded fuselages and airframe kits to the original customers. They have run all the calc's and obviously determined that it is a lot cheaper than hauling it in a box trailer.

My guess is that if you can find the time to build the crates at the aircraft location from local lumber, one-way shipping for the crates would be less than buying one large trailer and then having it hauled.

The only better possibility is if by some strange chance there is someone on BCP, who happens to be a long haul trucker, who can manage to find an empty semi trailer headed in that direction.

Is there a reason you need it enclosed? A 4 place snowmobile trailer is plenty big and small planes don't weigh much. High wings are easy too, just put the wings under the fuselage on carpet or foam rubber. You'll need to stack one wing on the other but it works.

I looked at alot of different "stock" snowmachine trailers and while the interior width was fine to put the Avid in with the wings folded, the door opening was about 2" too narrow to get it in the back door. I figured that a little bit of creative work with a jig saw to make the inner door lip on the trailer body go away, then bolt some aluminum angle onto the door on the outside to have it seal up against the trailer would give me the room I needed to get the plane in and out of the trailer.

The flip side was, I could drive down south to one ofthe manufactures and have it custom built just the way I wanted for a few thousand less than it would cost me to buy one up here in AK and modify it. It really is not that spendy to have one custome built to suit your needs! (spendy in the sense that we are talking airplane stuff that is)...

Is this trailer for a one time move or are you needing to trailer the airplane each time you fly?

Jaerl wrote:Is there a reason you need it enclosed? A 4 place snowmobile trailer is plenty big and small planes don't weigh much. High wings are easy too, just put the wings under the fuselage on carpet or foam rubber. You'll need to stack one wing on the other but it works.

Are you back from the dark side ?

EZFlap wrote: Make sure you run a comparison calculation for putting the wings and tails in one crate, and the fuselage (landing gear removed and stored in cockpit) in another crate, and then shipping both crates motor or rail freight. ..........

I got the impression that the original poster is looking for a trailer for transporting a completed airplane, not for bringing home a kit.

I understood that too, but the same basic ideas apply. If you are going to remove the wings and struts to transport a completed airplane in a big box trailer, then removing the tail surfaces and landing gear and propeller to put it in two smaller crates or trailers is not a huge extra burden. Especially if it saves money and/or prevents damage. The big question (alredady asked) is whether this is a one-time "bring it home" transport, or he wants a daily "take it to the airport" trailer. A one-way trip may or may not be less money using the two-crate method I suggested. Daily transport to the airport will require a whole different setup.

182 STOL driver wrote:Are you back from the dark side ?

No Bill, only half the way there. I'll email ya

Since my original post, I have switched gears radically. I now have a Zenith CH750, and the trailer proposition is a whole new angle, so to speak. I was visiting a Highlander owner, and he steered me to the Zenith. The 750 was just too beautiful to pass up--excellent workmanship by a two-time award-winner. It didn't have everything I wanted in an aircraft, but it had the most important things--and the downsides I can live with.

But . . . I do want to trailer the aircraft and frequently re-assemble it for flight--it's Alaska or bust (nervous laughter) next year, for example. Here's the problem: Length: 21' 10" Tail height: 8' 8" Tail width: 8' 5" Landing gear width: 6' 7"+ (Main tires are 80 x 6," so I suspect the space required will be a little over 7'.) I haven't picked up the airplane yet, so these measurements are from specs. I'm thinking of having a custom aluminum trailer built so that the tail protrudes from the back of the trailer above (or through) a custom rear door with the wings removed and stowed inside the trailer. The wing-fold option from Zenith would require the ends of the wings to stick out below the horizontal stabilizer, and I'm told that the wing-fold operation is not that much more difficult than removing and reattaching the wings. Not easy, but theoretically doable. Another option is an open trailer with some kind of protection from road hazards like gravel, etc.

Ideas and experiences welcome!

Zenair rudder/tail removable with 3 or 4 bolts. Zenair stabilizer/elevator removable with 5 bolts. This allows you to not only get it on a reasonable trailer, but it makes it so the trip does not beat the crap out of your airplane structure!

Your life depends on that structure, this is a serious matter. Airplanes are NOT designed for these loads. Very light experimental homebuilt airplanes are even less designed for them.

Stop and think about the tail(s) moving up and down and left and right 1/32 of an inch 100,000 times on a road trip, and believe me the Zenair tail attachment is not a heavy duty design.

Sorry to sound heavy-handed or overly authoritative... but do not even consider trailering this aircraft any distance with the tails on the airplane. All risk, guaranteed significant wear and tear, ZERO reward.

Fly it home? Everything comes apart you know. Big Penski truck, take your time, load it up and drive away.

EB

Thanks EZ and Emory,

I needed that. You're right! Good thinking. I've been worrying about that, but you know, "Monkey see, monkey do."

The plane isn't certified yet, so I have to haul it.

There are some cradles for the wings; what're y'all's opinions on that or wrapping them up good and tying them down to the bed of the truck or trailer? Any ideas about the methods of securing the gear to the floor?

Whee,

Yup, that's what I was planning to do until I got EZ's latest response. Taking the tail off not only means preventing the shaking and other slings and arrows of outrageous vibrations that hauling is heir to, and it means a smaller trailer and no wide-load permit jazz for a few inches. I would like to hear more particulars about hauling experiences, and the types of trailers used. I think I want to get a light-weight enclosed, aluminum-frame trailer, but maybe I'll end up getting my wife to drive the chase vehicle and just fly it. She should be thrilled with that idea, right?

Well, seeing that I have not offended you with my previous posts... I do happen to have a little experience trailering experimental airplanes.

There are three general principles:

1) have everything restrained softly, certainly not flopping around but not lashed down hard hard hard to the trailer. The trailer flexes and vibrates. Unless your trailer is a converted ConEx container, it is going to flex. Even if it doesn't flex it is going to vibrate, undulate, and bounce on the springs. Plain steel leaf springs set up a resonant frequency. Very few trailers have real shock absorbers. If you can use one of those for your trip, do it... but most don't. The important thing to understand is that if you firmly bolt and clamp a 50 pound aluminum pop-riveted .020" skinned Zenair 701 or 750 wing panel to a trailer frame, and the road vibrations are flexing that heavy trailer frame, your Zenair wing is going to have the equivalent of 5,000 hours on it in the best case, and visible damage in the worst case.

2) do NOT support the airplane in the trailer by any of the bolt fittings! You are taking enough risk on those fittings with normal flight loads, and trailer-thrashing is just adding two or three more bullets to the revolver in your Russian Roulette game. It's fine to support the fuselage on it's tires, with big chocks SCREWED into the trailer floor and wide nylon straps over the tires. But see 3) below. The wings should be hung leading edge down, on the sidewalls of the trailer, hung by nylon straps looped chordwise around the wing at four spanwise locations (not just one at the root and one at the tip). There should be dense foam pads between the wing leading edge and nylon straps, and these pads should be securely taped or lashed to the wing so they do not work their way loose.

3) an engine bouncing up and down 3 million times, with nothing supporting it but the engine mount cantilevered off the firewall, is very very bad. I once owned a small experimental (Cassutt) which is a traditional steel tube fuselage and engine mount. The weight of the engine bouncing up and down during trailering had caused repetitive movement stress, flexure, hardening, and ultimate failure of the STEEL TUBES. Now imagine the same type of engine weight loads bouncing up and down against the pop rivets and thin sheet metal firewall and forward fuselage structure of a Zenair. So my advice is to strap the tires down to the floor, install very large wheel chocks on all 3 tires, and then build up a padded support to take the engine weight off the fuselage. This can be as simple as a stack of plastic milk crates under the engine with a pillow wedged underneath the engine, and everything screwed down to the floor so it won't walk around.

Even after securing the aircraft correctly, with all aircraft trailering, you still have one major responsibility. Go back there and personally check your load every 150-200 miles. It's a pain in the ass, but you will be absolutely surprised at how much things will move around no matter how well you try to secure it. You have just spent a good chunk of your money on this airplane, and then you are going to ask it to protect your life and your family's lives. Stress cracks in aluminum can be so small that they are not easily seen. Repeated flexure, work hardening, and subsequent impending failure of a metal part will very often not be visible to the naked eye. Small mistakes and oversights in the trailering stage can become huge maintenance or repair problems as soon as you unload the aircraft. Extra time and energy securing and transporting the aircraft will pay you tenfold in preventing seen and unseen damage.

EZ has convinced me that I shouldn't haul the airplane at all, much less tow it over back roads (many washboard) to fly it off of an into remote places. His comments should alert all aircraft owners who are doing this of the danger of metal fatigue and the other issues he cites. And I should have known! I'm always hollerin' about "process thinking," but it's clear I wasn't doing it this time.

Even though he represents himself with a photo of his great, great, great-granddaughter or somebody, he ain't foolin' me! Can't say as I blame him

This guy knows his stuff! And, he probably save my ass and kept me from spending a huge amount of money on a trailer. I'll just fly it!

Well, I plan to be off to Carson City around the 3rd or 4th of October, and probably won't be back until some time in November, as I will be doing the Phase I testing at Lake Havasu starting around the middle of the month (if I get the inspection done by then). After that, I hope to be flying all around the western US and working up my skills for the backcountry, hoping to find some SLP's to fly with. Thanks to everybody for their comments.

WT

Kenai - Spokane
Of course it is going to be completely rebuilt prior to flight.
It did make the trip unscathed and in as good as shape as when started.
Snomachine trailer with angle iron and plywood extension.