I Need Some Tow Bar Ideas

[juredd1]

My 170 sets in an open style hanger with a dirt floor. Slight sloping from one side to the other and a slight uphill slope from back to front. I have some boards under the main wheels to just keep them off the ground and try to level it up a bit. My issue is, I don't have a good option currently to pull the plane out of the hanger by myself. With two people it's not an issue as we get on each wing strut and push, we can keep it pretty straight that way but when I don't have a helper it's tough. I don't feel I can push it out from the tail with one of those tail wheel tow bars but that would work fine when pulling it back into the hanger as there is a slight downhill slope or I could possibly use a small electric winch for the task.

I suspect I will get suggestions for the B.A.S tail handles and that might work, it would for sure help me keep it straight on exit but not sure I am man enough to push it out plus I'm looking for an under $400 option. Understand it is not a huge incline but my knees aren't what they used to be and I'm trying to save them for the stuff when I don't have any other options. My Uncle was thinking they made some sort of rigid device that would attach to both landing gears and you could hook it to a small tractor and since the hook ups are rigid that would not allow the tail to swing around on me during the pull out. I was also thinking of just using two ropes or straps to attaching to a central point from the gear legs but we think that would not stop the tail from swinging around on me since the hanger floor is somewhat sloped.

Any advice or ideas would be appreciated.

Justin

[hilltop170]

Justin-

http://allenmachineco.com/pages/data/airplane.htm

I have a couple of these winches and they work great, if you have 120v power, especially if your hangar is not deep enough to use a tug on the tail or tail tow bar. They will make you a "Y" bridal to hook onto gear lugs like you mention but you probably don't have tow lugs installed. You could also tow it from the tailwheel and steer the plane in and out by walking by the tail and nudging it either way.

To set up the winch to pull the plane out of the hangar, install it in the rear center of the hangar and set a deadman out in front of the hangar such as a duckbill anchor and use a snatch block attached to the deadman and simply loop the cable around the snatch block and back to the plane. With a push of the 75' handheld remote button, the plane will roll right out.

[GAHorn]

Install L-19 tow adaptors and use a towbar and a vehicle/tractor.

They are available from airrepair.com
(Pete Jones at Air Repair, Cleveland, MS)

They install on the lower axle bolt holes. (You may have to replace your existing bolts with slightly longer to accommodate the additional thickness of the adaptor and washer. If you have a very early gear, you may also have to drill out/radius the lower axle attach holes to accommodate the next size bolt like late gears do.)

Make a tailwheel tow bar out of 1.5" square tubing. (pipe won't work, it flexes too much). Weld a bolt vertically on one end of each tube to slip into the tow rings.
Attach the other ends of the tubing to each other with a bolt so they may "scissor", and attach a ring or trailer hitch.

I use my lawn tractor (to which I have adapted a trailer ball, but you can devise your own method.)

[Greg Bockelman]

Make a tailwheel tow bar out of 1.5" square tubing. (pipe won't work, it flexes too much).

Oh, I don't know. I used 1" black pipe for a tow bar for my 195 and never had any problems with it.

Granted, square WOULD be stiffer. But if I had to do it again, I would be comfortable with the 1" pipe.

[Bruce Fenstermacher]

I think 1" pipe would work if it was braced. Think of an A.

I built a tow bar to pull or push my 7000lb helicopter about the tarmac using scrap steel street sign square tube.

8-Foot-Square-Post-K-SQUARE-POST-8.jpg (16.62 KiB) Viewed 4820 times

[170C]

So that is where all those street sign post went

[juredd1]

Thanks to all that replied.

Richard,

Do you have the type setup you described or do you just use the winch to bring it back in?

George,

Sounds like you might use the same setup you described to me, any chance you could send pics of your setup when time permits?

Thanks.

[hilltop170]

They are both now set up just to pull back into the hangar but I used to be at a shed T-hangar with a dirt floor sloping up to the front and grass outside that I did have one rigged to pull the plane out. It worked great. I hooked the snatch block to the duckbill anchor with a carabiner and just left it laying in place while I was flying. When I got back, I attached the cable to the tailwheel and put the winch on freewheel and pushed the plane back into the shed. Then I removed the snatchblock and left it under the plane.