Tip: Easy, quick and cheap baggage tie down anchors

I saw this neat tie down anchor a few weeks ago at Nancy’s airport café in Willows Ca, it was in a RV 6 213JM. I thought it was a good design well worth “Borrowing” so with permission of the owner, here it is.



Here is a piece of scrap aluminum angle that I am going to make a baggage hold down with.

First step was to drill a couple pilot holes apx 1/3 up from the side of the angle. Next, I used a Unibit to enlarge the holes until the edge of the hole was even with the side piece. The two center holes are what I am working with. The other two holes were already there, but will not be used-----as I said, this is scrap material so I just used what is available.



Here you can see that I have cut off the end of the piece, just barely cutting into the hole I just drilled.



OK, I have cut off the other side now, and done a bit of shaping on the top edge to get rid of the sharp corner, and lighten it up a few miliounces -----(if there is such a thing as a miliounce). As of yet, no deburring or finish work done. I drilled a couple holes to rivet in in place.



Test fit with a bungee cord--------looks like it will do the job. Still needs a few minutes with a file, and Scotchbrite wheel.

Total time to make this was not even 5 minutes---------way less than to upload the photos, and type this description.

All measurements were done by “TLAR”.

Here is a much simpler version that works very nicely:



I have four of these riveted to the baggage compartment floor. The tangs stick up through slits in the carpet so bungees can be hooked to them.

Nice!

Simple and elegant, just what I need for my 7A.

Mcmaster-Carr supplied mine. Simple and easy loop clamp, pull out a baggage screw and put this on it. I can't say what the load bearing ability is but stainless should hold as well as the aluminum it's bolted to I think. Still testing tho.

http://www.mcmaster.com/#8863t67/=rszezl

What I like about the ones Mike did is that if you are using ropes instead of bungee cords with hooks, you can treat these like cleats...boaters will know what I mean!

Ironflight said:

What I like about the ones Mike did is that if you are using ropes instead of bungee cords with hooks, you can treat these like cleats...boaters will know what I mean!

Click to expand...

Or, the bungee cord itself if needed---

Slick idea, Mike! Nancy's in Willows is a great place. I've done some car racing at the nearby ThunderHill track and have eaten there a couple times. It's exciting to think that I'll be able to fly there in a couple of years!

Drill a hole in the middle of Mike's cleat and you can have the best of both worlds.

Tie downs

Very cool idea for a tie down! I may use this for two of the points.

I've seen a good idea someone else posted on here where they make a spot to thread the wing's tie downs into the floor of the baggage compartment. It's dual purpose and may gain you about 0.001 knots of free airspeed.

Steve Wolfe

rgmwa said:

Drill a hole in the middle of Mike's cleat and you can have the best of both worlds.

Click to expand...

That is one of those head slap, "why didnt I think of that" moments.............