Final Move

The final move of the fuselage from my garage in Mountain View, CA to my hangar at the South County Airport in San Martin, CA took place on May 3rd, 2008. I rented a 26' U-Haul truck and using ramps I had made up for the previous WA to CA U-Haul move, the move was completed pretty quickly and safely. Many thanks to the crew of volunteers that helped me out on this!

First the plane had to be prepped for the move by clecoing on the forward top skin and removing the cowling so the engine mount could be used for pushing/pulling the plane up/down the ramps during the loading and unloading of the truck. Here it is in the final moments at "home":

And here it is in the truck, ready to be tied down and secured for the ride:

Wheel chocks in place, ready to tie down with cargo straps:

Here's a shot of the ramps. Used standard U-Haul truck ramp for nose wheel and made main gear ramps from 2x10 and a ramp kit from the auto parts store. I put the rails on outboard side of main gear ramps to keep the mains from being able to ride off the side. The main gear ramps are secured with pins to the 2x4 across the back end of the cargo floor. The 2x4 is secured inside the truck to make sure the ramps can't slip.

Hard to see, but there are wheel chocks screwed to these 2x4s. The chocks were made from 4x4 cut at 45 degree angle and eye bolts were attached to the 2x4s so cargo straps could be used to pull the fwd chocks tight from the rear and pull the rear chocks tight from the front. The 2x4s with chocks were then also secured by toe-nailing wedged 2x4s from the front of the truck to the chocks and from the truck bed wheel wells to the rear of the chocks. The whole setup was very effective in keeping the plane in place during the pretty flat (no hills) ride from home to the airport and the same setup withstood the inclines of several mountain passes during my most recent cross-country move with this project:

Final move: pg 1 | pg 2

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This page was last updated on 12/18/11.

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