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Moving Day! (slightly late)

sbalmos

Well Known Member
This past Saturday, as predicted, was Moving Day! Off to the airport with the bird. I had numerous offers and suggestions from fellow EAA chapter members on various trailers. But none of them were wide enough for the main gear legs, and I wasn't exactly keen on the idea of rigging 2x10s outriggers for the wheels to rest on. Didn't seem stable enough, or enough shock absorption. So I ended up calling a near-the-airport car towing company. Their normal flatbed was wide enough, it obviously had shock absorption and general "heft", and was insured. Sure, it cost, but it was peace of mind.

It didn't help that Saturday was forecast to be a very rainy day, parts of my neighborhood were being repaved that morning, and the airport was having their annual R/C aircraft show that weekend. Oh well.

Dad and I rolled the bird out at 9am sharp and started roping a tarp on, to cover the exposed avionics bay and non-existent windscreen area, in case it would rain.

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The moving truck arrived 10am sharp-ish, and after the requisite dropped jaw and snapping his own pictures for his son by the truck driver ("yes, I really did move an airplane..."), we got everything tied down nicely. Hauling the plane up with the winch by the nosewheel, right above the pivot point, worked perfectly. Tied down there, two heavy ratchets through either side of the engine mount at the lower engine mount bolt holes, the main wheels, and two ratchets through the tail tie-down ring.

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Aaaaaand off we went. It's only 30 minutes, across town, from my condo on the northeast side of Cincinnati (find Kings Island, if you want to look on a map), to Butler County Airport on the northwest side (KHAO). And we took back roads with little traffic for a weekend. But it was the longest 45+ minutes of my life. Most of the time I was watching to see if the tarp would blow off. It was flapping a *lot*.

Finally arrived at the airport, safe and sound.

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Unloading was just everything in reverse, and proceeded reasonably straightforward...

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... except it's always amusing watching a roughly 130lb twig of a person (me), wrestling a 600+lb(?) fuselage from not running away down the ramp, after the winch is disconnected ...

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Now... empty garage back home... I have no idea what to do. Parking the car inside it for the first time in 2.5+ years seems out of place.

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Credits to Mark Wyss for the pics at the airport that have me in it. Thanks to my fellow members of EAA Chapter 974 for the help unloading. And the chapter overall for even more rental space in our chapter project hangar to finish this beast in the coming months.

Now on to pulling the engine out of the crate in the next weekend or so, and getting it ready to mount.
 
Congratulations Scott! It will get more interesting very soon. You said the tarp was flapping all the way check the contacts points there might be wear scars on aluminum. Nice wheelies!
 
Congratulations Scott! It will get more interesting very soon. You said the tarp was flapping all the way check the contacts points there might be wear scars on aluminum. Nice wheelies!

There are plenty of wear scars on your aluminium, Sir.

:)
 
Congrats Scott

Another milestone on the build you can check off now. I did the outriggers on a 4 X 8 trailer for 70 miles with back roads and interstate. Getting the mains onto the outriggers was the worst part. If you had the funds for the rollback - why not - much less stress on yourself and plane. Next time we meet I'll show you the pictures. Again congratulations.
 
Mark - The wings were moved in a box truck a few years back. The wooden wing stand I built was on casters, and the whole thing was just strapped down to the inside of the truck. They've been slumbering (and gathering dust) with the engine in the back of our chapter hangar ever since. I've got pics, but they're in a backup folder from a previous phone, so they're not loaded in Google Photos at the moment.

Vlad - I'll have to check. But the tarp flapping would've been on the aft top area, probably mostly on the canopy center track. That whole area, and most of the fuselage, still has its protective vinyl on, as you see in the pics.
 
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[/IMG]Ah no need to make a production out of it, I moved mine to the hangar last week as well, a $159 Harbor Freight trailer did the job just fine pulled by a Korean econobox!
 
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Congrats!

Scott, Congrats. that's a milestone! It will be nice to have another 9 at HAO. when you were moving to the airport the other 9 was traveling 600 miles away and having fun!
 
Scott - nice to see you get to this part of the build. Congratulations. I missed not seeing you this year at AV. Maybe next year we can fly in!!
 
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