trailering enclosed trailer

[teamkitfox7788]

I am interested in comparing notes with others who tow their Kitfox around within an enclosed trailer.

I trailer our model IV 1050 all over the US each year and have done so for over ten years now (without hurting the plane), guessing over 75,000 miles on the roads with plane in trailer. Flown low and slow in some spectacular places.

From having the plane inside the trailer in our yard in the Fl Keys to inside the local airport KMTH) and ready to fly takes about 12 minutes although as little as under 10 minutes. Lots of little tricks make this quick and easy.

Annual hanger rent here is over $6,000 so I guess this is cheap too. Obviously we live very close to KMTH.

I share what I have learned along the way by doing forums at aviation events such as Sun N Fun, Sebring Sport Plane Expo, Copper State, and Oshkosh and usually display the plane, enclosed trailer and Roadtrek motor home that we tow the trailer with and use to drive around while touring by road.

I do not sell anything. Touring with the baby plane and motor home has been so much fun, I feel compelled to share and hopefully learn from others in the process.

Since navigating Team Kitfox is new to me and I do not get on the computer much please bear with me in those regards

BJ

[ken nougaret]

Hi bj,
glad to see you on the forum. My wife and i spoke with you at sunnfun about your trailer. you told me i was asking all the right questions. Im still trying to decide if i should go the 9' wide from mark sorenson. ken
Building model ss7

[t j]

Well, I'm back to trailering again after sharing a T hangar for a year and a half. I came to the conclusion that sharing a hangar, opening stubborn sliding doors,, moving another plane to get mine out, putting the other plane back in, and closing the stubborn doors again is a lot of monkey motion on each end of each flight and isn't even worth a little over 1/2 what hangar rent is in your neck of the woods. Not to mention shoveling snow and chipping ice in the winter. Having My Kitfox at home where I can tinker on it when I want to with all my tools handy is a lot nicer too.

Mine is just an open converted snowmobile trailer and I just tow back and forth to the same airport for each flight so probably not much you can learn from me but I am always looking for tips and tricks to make loading and unloading faster and easier too. My average time to unload and put the plane together ready to preflight is 20 minutes.

[teamkitfox7788]

Ken, Hi!

Hope your build is going well and thanks for the comment. It probably raises a question or two in a few minds.

Why would anyone want to use a 9 foot wide trailer and is it legal.

Most states allow 8.5 foot wide trailers without an annual online permit or trip kit. And most states have laws allowing equipment that is wide and not practical to take apart to move on state roads.

I am one of those guys who tows big sport fishing trailer boats way over 8.5 feet wide and the consensus among folks who do this is towing a 9 foot wide trailer is much like the 55 mph speed limit, no one bothers you with a 9 foot wide trailer if you drive so that you do not look like a danger to yourself or others. Don't go thru old north east bridges that were designed way before current road design specifications, avoid driving thru big cities, use the beltways. All common sense stuff.

At 10 feet wide the story changes.

Next why a 9 foot wide trailer.
A 9 foot wide trailer makes it remarkably easier to load and unload a Kitfox. An 8.5 foot wide trailer DESIGNED FOR A KITFOX is very tight and requires serious attention, to load and unload without scratching the wings on the trailer walls. In the 8.5 trailer that I still own, I would winch the plane in a foot or two, then look down each side wall, then winch it in a little more. At some point I would realize the plane was not lined up perfectly, so I would have to pull it out and try to realign it again. This was a PIA! Add dark coming, storm rolling in or bugs biting.

With the 9 foot wide trailer, I just roll it in almost without needing to pay attention. Incredible difference in ease of loading.

I can use either my 8.5 wide or my 9 foot wide trailer. I love the 9 foot wide and don't even consider using the 8.5 wide (except maybe for long term storage.)

Think about this for a moment. My Kitfox trailer acts a hanger in my yard when we are at the house in the Florida Keys. In ten minutes I can pull the plane out of the trailer, tow it down the road (a short distance) into the back gate of the airport, fold the wings out and be ready to fly. That's right ten minutes. Really quick and easy and no $6,000 per year hanger rent.

The Kitfox folding wing and wide trailer plus a bunch of little tricks acquired over years of using a trailer make protecting the plane from the elements, kids and critters simple, quick, easy and cheap. These also make touring the US by motorhome with your plane very easy and huge fun.

Now for the flip side. A guy/gal who has limited big trailer towing experience will have a learning curve with either an 8.5 wide or 9 wide trailer.

By the way, almost all car trailers have rear ramp door openings that are too narrow to use for a Kitfox.

BJ

[tommg13780]

Bob,
We talked at Sun N Fun and I also went to your slide show. I'm planning to travel this season with a fresh built enclosed trailer and model 4 speedster. The trailer is done and ready to go. The Speedster project is in final assembly and will be ready by summer. I've been trailering with an open trailer since 2007 with a small assortment of Kolb and Kitfox airplanes. For me the convenience of bringing an airplane and ground transportation to a flyin is the only way to go. So far my travels have been limited to about 4 hours driving but this season I'm planning to expand the radius to about 5-600 miles. Of course the trailer is also a satisfactory substitute for a hanger which is some what difficult to come by in my neighborhood. After the Phase 1 flyoff is completed I may be offering demonstration rides and perhaps transition training for those interested in early model Kitfox time. There may be an upgrade to motorhome for tow vehicle in the future in which case I would finally be keeping up with the Jones's.

[t j]

KITFOX TRAILERING CHECKLIST

Master & mag switches off
Fuel off
Radio off
Intercom off
ANR headset off
GPS off
ELT off

Airplane documents secure
Check for loose items
Doors latched

Pitot tube covered
Flaperons bungeed
Wing lock back braces installed
Tail support in place
Elevator secured
Rudder secured

Wing support braces installed
Wheel tie downs secure
Chock blocks in place
Exhaust plug in
Prop secured

Ramps secured
Tilt pin secure
Winch locked
Tongue jack up
Rudder cushions loaded
Turtle deck loaded

[Peteohms]

Seems like you'd need a rear camera to see in back on a wide trailer.

[teamkitfox7788]

T J,

The 10 minutes it takes to get the plane out of the trailer, down the road to the airport, inside the airport gate, unfold the wings and be ready to fly is a very short time because of several little tricks.

1. The two rods that go from tabs on the vertical stabilizer to tabs at the wing strut attach points are held in position by small bolts (actually SS clevis pins from West Marine) with spring clips thru holes drilled in the ends of the small bolts. No small nuts to screw on and off and drop in the grass, and no need for pliers or wrenches. Very quick.
2. The same spring clip idea works for the T bolts that connect the control rods from the mixer under the seat to the flaperon horns. Again no nuts to screw on small bolts., no need for pliers or wrenches
3. There is a mark on the top rear of the cabin "glass" that matches a mark on the turtle deck so the turtle deck goes right in exactly the best spot and the turtle deck connectors line up quickly and easily each time it is installed.
4. The hanger/trailer is 9 feet wide. This is a huge advantage. Moving the plane in and out requires very little attention to avoid wing scratching, there is lots of room to spare between the folded wings and the walls of the trailer. I love the 9 foot wide trailer.
5. If the wings look like they might touch the trailer walls while loading it , rather than pull the plane out and realigning it, try using four cheap plastic cutting boards. As the plane is coming in to the trailer, run each main gear tire up on two of the cutting boards. The plane can be slid a bit sideways as the cutting boards slide over one another to get better alignment of the plane with the trailer walls
6. This is a personal favorite. When I land and get out of the plane, I lift the tail onto a small flat Harbor Freight Tools ($170) trailer which has a socket for the tail wheel. Pieces of two by 3 are screwed to the trailer deck leaving a socket or "hole" to drop the tail wheel in. I strap it in position.
&. The small flat bed trailer makes folding the wings easier because there is little downward force as the wings fold. The wings are at a perfect slope to drop a siphon in the wing tanks to empty the wing tanks for long distance towing. The small flat bed trailer has moderately large tires that roll easily on sand, gravel and soft earth or grass when compared to my plane's tail wheel tire.
9. With the planes tail on the small flatbed trailer it is easy to tow out of the airport, down the road and to our house (no interstate obviously)
10. A sixteen inch or so piece of all thread replaces one of the trailer tongue hitch bolts. The all thread makes a good two ended grab handle to pull the trailer around. I am a scrawny old guy but I rarely use the winch in the enclosed trailer to pull the plane inside, I just grab the long all thread bolt thru the small trailer's tongue and pull the plane into the enclosed trailer. The enclosed trailer has a low floor because it has torsion axles rather than springs which means a shallow ramp door angle for easy loading.
BJ

[SkyPirate]

When I was hauling over sized loads,..anything 10' wide or wider required a permit and NO WEEK END hauling,..but the one advantage of a 10' wide load,..I did not need an escort,..12' and wider I did..16' and wider required 2 state approved escorts and 2 highway patrol escorts,
Just to cover any legal issues, that could leave stuck on the side of the road somewhere, I would stick with 8'6" wide trailer, just my 2 cents worth

[t j]

The plastic cutting boards under the tires and the small trailer under the tail wheel are great tips.

There is a storage unit place across the road from my airport. I have thought about looking into renting one of those but loading the plane to move it over there was still a deal breaker. I will have to investigate the small trailer idea. Towing the plane just a couple 100 yards I wouldn't think the wing spar braces would be needed either.