My 7 will be going to the airport soon for final assembly and inspection. I have several transport options in mind. I am always open to new ideas. How did you do it?
I hired a flat bed tow truck. It had a tilt back platformwith a winch. The landing gear had a few inches on each side. I brought the wings in my pickup in the wing cradle. The tow truck bed is also high up so on the way to the airport hangar all the gawking drivers were unable to ram into it!
I don't know of a safer way than rollback flatbed tow truck.I had seen many home brew methods, that really scared me, so hiring flatbed was no brainier when I moved RV 4 to airport last year ! Tom
I have transported three planes: Cozy MKIV, RV-10, and RV-9A. The Cozy MKIV and 9A I transported on trailers. The trailers required modifications to fit everything, accommodate the wide landing gear, and ramps,,,hence a lot of additional work . Cozy was a 20 mile trip. RV-9A was a 650 mile trip. By far the easiest trip was the RV-10. I hired a local towing company that had a very large rollback flatbed. This particular rig had no rail on the sides of the rollback bed, it was perfectly flat. The rigs with the rail on the sides would not accommodate the RV-10 wheel base. I made prior arrangements with the company for Sunday service so there was no rush. The driver extended the rollback bed all the way out and tilted down, attached a heavy strap to the nose gear and winched it up as I steered it with a Bogert bar. I assisted in strapping it down to my specs and 20 minutes later it was at the airport. Cost was under $150 and stress free! For the RV-9A, I built a wing crate that fit under the fuselage. The RV-10 used two trips, one for the fuselage and one for the wing crate.
We used one of the sliding flatbeds with a winch for my RV-8 and got the wings on with the fuselage. It worked out very well for a 35 mile ride to the airport. Some interesting gawkers on the way!
My 7 will be going to the airport soon for final assembly and inspection. I have several transport options in mind. I am always open to new ideas. How did you do it?
When I called the dispatcher at R.W. Lance here in the East Bay, he thought I was the guy with a plane he just towed from KLVK to his home. No sir, this baby's going to the airport for the first time.
Then Tricia (my wife, who was taking pictures) asked the driver, "Bet you don't haul many of these, huh?"
"Aw, I done quite a few before." Good--he knew what he was doing! Fit the webbing around the mains with the inboard webs tucked behind the brake discs. No possible damage to the brake lines.
I wanted to chime in to recommend R. Lance towing if you want to haul your RV project around the East San Francisco Bay area. I hired them to tow the 7A project to its new home at KLVK and it went smoothly. The tow operator mentioned this was the seventh airplane he's towed and at this point they seem to have proficiency at doing it. Strapped the winch to the nose gear leg and hauled it onboard. Strapped down each gear leg and then finally loosely strapped the tail in place through the tie-down ring. Zero fuss or headache and a totally uneventful ride. The biggest issue were a few gawkers along the way. Charged $200 for a 5 mile ride, but it was entirely done for me in about 45 minutes--totally worth it in my view.