Moving!

This was a project.  We moved from Little Rock, AR to Abilene, TX, and there was no way I was going to let the movers get anywhere near the plane, so I moved it myself.

I ended up renting a 16' flatbed trailer to move everything on.  I think that was pretty much the perfect size, at least without an engine mounted.  I strapped the main gear tires to the forward wall of the trailer, so the engine mount hung out over the tongue of the trailer.  Without the engine that was fine and it made it easy to secure everything.

Anyway, I strapped the front down by the tires and the engine mount.

Next I made two individual wing stands, pretty much copying the idea of the stand I already built that holds both wings.  I didn't want to cannibalize the stand I already built since I'd need it at the new house.  I pretty much built these out of scrap wood I had laying around anyway.  I bolted these stands to the deck of the trailer on either side of the fuselage using self drilling bolts, and then strapped the stands to the sides of the trailer as well to help keep them upright.

I used several straps per wing to contain them in every direction, and also put some moving blankets folded up between the leading edge and the straps to help prevent any chance of them getting dented somehow.  It took me a while to figure out but it worked!

For the rear of the fuselage, I stacked up some wood just high enough to get the tailwheel off the floor, then strapped the tail down using straps crisscrossed around the stabilators.  I bolted a few tiedown rings to the floor to give me something to strap to.

With the big parts secure, I neatly piled up all the remaining large flat parts, long pushrods, flaps, and ailerons under the fuselage and strapped everything to the floor with some moving blankets between the layers.

With the plane all the way forward I had a couple feet of empty space at the back of the trailer, so I piled up more boxes of parts there, along with my other wing rack (mostly disassembled), and my wife's beehive (full of bees) in the back.

I had to stop a few times along the way to adjust and tighten straps and stuff, mostly holding the wings, but eventually we made it!

Here's everything in the new garage.  It'll probably be a little while until I get back to serious work but I'll have plenty of room here!

Overall this was a decent amount of work but it was totally doable.  This was a 500 mile move so it only took a day, but once everything was secured I think I could have driven it indefinitely...  With that said, I hope I can have the plane done before the next move!