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Getting to the airport

Kupde

Active Member
Patron
Asking for help on how to get to the airport in Late March or early April. Well I?m planning on moving the project from my garage in Brandon FL to Tampa Executive I?ve read many threads and I?m finding it difficult to find a trailer that?s wide enough for the RV-10. Also it sounds like some builders have called for a car tow truck but I?m concerned that it may take a while to get the whole thing rigged safely so I?m not sure if a tow truck will be interested in spending that much time. I?m open to any suggestions and just want to have an option available in 4 or 5 weeks. Any thoughts are welcome.
 
Do you have a friend who has equipment - backhoe, cat, etc? Their trailers should be wide enough. You can rig an 8' wide with a 2x12 to carry the plane if necessary. Make sure you have friends there to help. The more the better.

Have fun with it and remember this in not the last time you will go to the airport so don't try to take everything at once.
 
Asking for help on how to get to the airport in Late March or early April. Well I’m planning on moving the project from my garage in Brandon FL to Tampa Executive I’ve read many threads and I’m finding it difficult to find a trailer that’s wide enough for the RV-10. Also it sounds like some builders have called for a car tow truck but I’m concerned that it may take a while to get the whole thing rigged safely so I’m not sure if a tow truck will be interested in spending that much time. I’m open to any suggestions and just want to have an option available in 4 or 5 weeks. Any thoughts are welcome.

Move the airplane on a Saturday or Sunday morning. Be sure to give them your specific vehicle requirements (width in particular). The driver will be sitting around bored that time of day, and will likely be intrigued with your project. Even better, he'll be happy he doesn't have to crawl down into a swamp or ditch to retrieve a car.

Instead, he'll be on solid ground just trying to winch the thing onto the trailer and rig it. There are better riggers around than me, but with the RV-6, we chocked it and used several straps attached to the gear legs and to hard points on the truck to secure it. Wasn't that hard.
 
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We used a standard tilt bed tow truck and the -10 fit fine. Did not take long to load and strap down. The mover was a pilot and friend, which helped, but it wasn?t difficult. I think most drivers would enjoy doing something different for a change.
 
ABSOLUTELY NOTHING SAFER OR SANER THAN FLATBED TOW TRUCK,
MOST will give good price because attention to move will get attention to their
business ! Tom
 
I can heartily recommend Clearwater Towing. They moved my 9A from Clearwater to ZPH without any issue whatsoever. And the cost was unbelievablely low. I believe the driver was Carlos.

Chris
 
You can not beat a rollback deck flatbed. Make sure the deck is wide enough for the -10. The first truck he came out with had rails on the side that were about 6" high for tie-offs. Not wide enough! He had to go back and get the true flat deck. You can see the tires are just barely fully on the deck. Did it on a low traffic Sunday morning. Under $100.
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[/url]IMG_0027 by David C, on Flickr[/IMG]
 
I had a nearby construction equipment rental place that rented me a tilt-bed truck. I took a tape measure, only one of their trucks had a wide enough bed. I made two trips to the airport (main fuselage on one trip, wings on another.)
 
I recently moved the wings and horizontal stabilizer to the airport. I rented a 17' box truck from uhaul. This gives you about 15' of usable floor space, the 17' includes the part above the cabin. Anyhow with the wingtips on it barely fit. Just used straps to secure the wing cradles and HS to the sides of the truck.

I haven't moved the fuselage and stuff and won't plan to until probably this summer. My plan though is to use a friends roll back as described above. That's the safest way I can think of to move it.
 
Thank you all for the many suggestions. Now it looks like I have a few different options.
 
If I may be so bold as to hijack this thread, I think all the photos I've seen of the move to the airport have been of aircraft already on gear. Anyone ever move the plane from garage to hangar before putting it on gear?
 
I moved mine several times with the gear off and on. I believe it is quite a bit easier off the gear than on. I built a 4'x5' platform for the fuselage to sit on to move around in my garage. I used a piece of plywood to roll the fuselage onto the trailer and then off. It worked fine. It is much easier to work on the fuselage off the gear and if I were to build again, the gear may be one of the last things to install!
 
I just purchased a RV10 project on the gear. Hired an aircraft recovery company to move it. They normally moved crashed planes. They lifted it onto a trailer with a set of Gin poles and a winch. They had a bar that was wider than the fuse and they dropped straps down each side to the spar. Took a small amount of balancing (pitch). It worked great. Everything else was inside a trailer. You might see if there is a recovery co. in your area.
 
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