Four hours drive isn't really too bad for a one-day trip. When it entails delicate freight, a ferry ride, Seattle traffic at rush hour and about four hours to load, it becomes a challenge. The plan was to head up to Seattle on a weekday to arrive at the Mukilteo ferry after the morning rush hour. After what I originally thought would be two hours to load we would head back through Seattle before the evening rush hour.
Moving a Glasair this distance starts with finding the right equipment. When I found out that I would need to move another Glasair, I started weighing my options for moving equipment. The first option was my 16' flatbed trailer behind my mid-size pickup. The second option was to rent another 24' Budget truck. The third option was to beg my employer to allow me to use his 24' enclosed trailer.
Option one would require me to build an elaborate jig system that would support the wing high above the fuselage so that I could overhang it forward of the trailer above the tailgate of my truck. This seemed a little sketchy.
Option two seemed easy. I found a Budget rental franchise near the entrance to the ferry that I would use to get to the island. Except that I remembered how much gas the truck I rented to move the Glasair I used. It was more along the lines of gallons-per-mile.
Option three seemed like a stretch to accomplish. It turned out to require no begging at all. The only question now was " Would it fit?". The trailer roof was a full 2 feet lower than the budget truck. So this is how I figured out that it just might work.
The first drawing was of the plane from the rear. Another was made of the trailer from a top view and a side view. Then I drew the wing from a top view as well. I placed the wing drawing over the top view of the trailer and figured out that it would fit ok. The fuselage, however, was a bit of a challenge. The horizontal is 8' 10" long and the trailer is only 7' 11" wide. I used my CAD program to determine that it would require setting the fuselage at a +31deg angle to get the horizontal in the door. This left a question as to whether the fuselage would clear the wing at the middle of the trailer. This is where I just had to say "I guess we'll see".
Next I had to design a set of jigs to hold the plane for the four hour drive home. The next drawing shows the 2x6 jigs in green. The details were close, but, in reality turned out to be a little different. Mostly due to the fact that three adults were holding the plane in position in the trailer while I fabricated the jigs.
Upon arriving on the island we unpacked the wood for the jig and the power tools. I then assessed the first challenge, getting the wing AND jig into the trailer. We ended up lifting the entire jig off of the floor and placing it on two saw horses. We then marked and removed the legs.
The four of us then carried the wing, on the jig, into the trailer and set it into position.
Next we fabricated the side supports for the fuselage jig. These supports were then attached to the trailer with tie-downs on the floor and wall. This photo shows the side support after I had built the front support.
The front support was fabricated after we carried the fuselage into the trailer. My three helpers held the plane in place while I quickly built it.
Without taking a minute break I had to quickly build the rear jig. It took a couple tries to come up with something that would work when it was discovered that the drawing wouldn't work. If you look under the fuselage at the middle of the wing, you can see how close my guess was as to whether this would all fit.
After the fuselage and wing were loaded I used tie-downs to secure them. Then we packed all the other parts in and around them. It took a total of four hours to load everything and finally get under way. Once we were in line at the ferry I was able to take a breath and stop sweating.
The extended loading time put us right in the middle of evening rush hour in Seattle. We left the island at 4:30pm and I didn't pull into my driveway in Newberg, Oregon until 11:30pm. I'm happy to report that NOTHING moved an inch inside that trailer during the long ride home.