Has anyone had the pleasure of needing to ship a set of wings across the country?
I have a set of 170B wings for sale (plug) and I might have a buyer...3,000 miles away.
I checked the UPS store but they were all out of 17'x3'x8' boxes.

How have others crated and shipped something this big?

I used the company that Vans uses to ship their quick build kits, Partain Transport. I know he's made some changes recently, maybe sold the company, so I'll dig up current info when I get to work.

Build a cradle+crate (or two) and look into freight shipping options? A specialist is likely your best bet though to get them there intact. Anyone else is going to move it between trucks at least a few times, and each time they get touched is a chance for bad things to happen.

I shipped the wings I built for my Murphy Rebel from Hawaii to MN. Went on a ship to the west coast and then via truck to my place. Not cheap. It was $2500 and this was about 10 years ago. I actually used the table that I constructed to ship them in. I will have to double check on what the name of the trucking company was, but to ground transport was about a third or so of the cost. Maybe closer to $1000.

I recently used High Road Aviation LLC for transport. The owners name is Joel and he was reasonable, fast and did a great job. He's out of Wisconsin but travels all over the US. He is actually picking up a speed cowl for me in Florida soon and bringing it up here to MN. Considerably cheaper than any other frieght since he will add it to an already scheduled load. Some freight is charged by the size rather than weight.

I don't know much about it, but rail freight has worked for our company in the past, shipping container goods. Worth a conversation with someone in the know, especially for something bulky.

Might be worth calling some like American Champion or Rans and see how they ship since the do it regularly.

I just shipped an entire C-205 in a homemade pallet, from California - Connecticut, using a company called Freight Center. 1800-716-7608. The contact person was Steve Mueller. The price was $2850. The load stayed in the same truck the entire route. The service was excellent. You might get a better price using U-Ship.com but this guy worked out best for me. There are truckers who use U-Ship to find small jobs. I ran into one guy on U-Ship who made an offer of $2500. He had a 1-ton pickup and an aluminum flatbed trailer. I just did'nt want my load uncovered. Hope this helps.

Box them up yourself, a bulletproof crate will cost around $200.00. Then put your load out to bid on the internet. When I bought a mini excavator in Nebraska last year, I went this route, I used U-Ship. It was a slick process, just get your all up weight and size of the load, and where you want it picked up and delivered, and then truckers across the nation will start putting bids out. At some point you will be able to ask questions etc. and work out the details.

My trucker, due to constant storms, road closures, and high winds across Wyoming (who would have guessed??!) had a drive from hell, through no fault of his own (he blamed Wyoming) and called to ask if it would be OK if he showed up late, like 11:00 PM, try that with a traditional freight company. When he showed up right on time at my shop, I was surprised to see it wasn't a big rig but a 1 ton with a 24' flatbed trailer. My first thought was I got robbed, paid for a big rig but got a small one, followed by "who cares, it got here". A good cost effective way to do it, turns out the guy was a civil engineer who plays trucker in his spare time. It was overall a very positive experience and i'd go that route again in a heartbeat, MUCH better then dealing with the major freight lines who always seem to screw things up, this was more personal.

We use GlobalTranz when we ship spars. They have had the best prices for us.

Rod
Rainbow Flying Service

Send Jolene Patterson an email at jolene (at) stewarttransport (dot) com. She was my point of contact after Tony Partain when I shipped my wings. They got strapped to the walls of a Factory 5 race car trailer with 3 Van's quickbuild kits in it. Everything went smoothly

Thanks for all the comments but the deal fell through.
It’s tough to justify an additional 30% or moreover the purchase price - even if the wings are really cheap.
Know anyone that needs a rebuildable set of 170B/172 wings?