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<< Lancair Builders' Mail List >>
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<<Does anyone have a crate for a Lancair 320 kit that has not been built? I
need to move it on a truck. How do I do this? >>
I consider myself rather expert at this, since I have trucked my 360 from:
1) Redmond to Phoenix (home)
2) Phoenix to Phoenix (storage)
3) Phoenix (storage) to Cleveland (storage)
4) Cleveland (storage) to Cleveland (home)
I then trailered the Lancair from:
5) Cleveland to Torrance CA
6) Torrance to Lompoc CA
7) Lompoc CA to Palmdale CA
You need a 15 foot truck for the 320. You don't have to get a crate. Get 2
dozen furniture pads from U-Haul or equivalent (get the truck from someone
else. U-Haul sucks, but that's another story.) Tie the wings up along the
sides of the truck (on the inside, of course), so that they are resting on
the leading edges. Use much padding under the leading edges and between the
wings. Just lay the fuselage on the floor (with padding underneath), it
won't move. Little parts should be boxed up, and intermediate sized parts
(precut nomex core parts) can be wrapped in padded movers paper and then
either boxed or wrapped in furniture pads. Put the canopy on the fuselage
and tape it down along the seams.
If you have a bigger truck it's a little easier. Spread everything on the
floor -- don't stack stuff on top of each other. (Fiberglass parts can go
over fiiberglass parts if both are wrapped up, but don't stack boxes that can
fall over.) The truck will look rather empty when you're done.
Find a motel room where you can look out the window at the truck. You won't
get much sleep the first night but you will the subsequent nights. On your
seventh move you think "maybe if they take it my problems will be over..."
and you sleep like a baby.
All your other household goods go in a different truck. If it's a
professional move then they will take the smaller stuff and your job is
easier.
If your stub wings are installed it won't fit in a truck or even a moving
van. You need to put it on an open trailer. I guarantee it will rain on the
plane. Positively 100% guaranteed, even if you move from Phoenix to Tucson
in the dead of summer. So wrap it up well with OPAQUE BLACK polyethylene
sheeting and lots of box-packing tape. Buy the good tape. The cheap crap
that the movers use is a pain. Put one heavy-duty tarp over the canopy and
another over the engine mount area. Secure the tarps with bungee cords. It
you can find 1/4 inch diameter bungee cord material without the hooks it
works better. Put the black plastic over everything. Plan on stopping a few
times to tape down flapping plastic.
I have a dual-wide snowmobile trailer that works well and only needed slight
modifications. It cost about $800 new but my new employer paid half, which
was the cost of renting a U-Haul car trailer. This trailer has been towed
behind a Honda CRX from Cleveland to Torrance (2200 miles) and behind a Mazda
Miata from Lompoc to Palmdale (180 miles). You can't even tell it's there.
You'll forget it's there and scare yourself when you drive away from a toll
booth and see the attendant diving away from his window as the wing stub
passes by his nose unexpectedly.
And then there was the passing motorist in Denver who asked me while we both
waited at a stoplight if this was a 320 or a 360...
- Rob Wolf
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LML website: http://www.olsusa.com/Users/Mkaye/maillist.html
LML Builders' Bookstore: http://www.buildersbooks.com/lancair
Please send your photos and drawings to marvkaye@olsusa.com.
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