Aircraft Moving Dolly (Dollies?)

[GAHorn]

I built my hangar 50x50x18 (eaves) with a 13x44 overhead door…. which I’ve managed to fill up with an incredible amount of stuff I’d never planned for…. and with a Tractor, two off-road vehicles, an Airstream trailer, log-splitter, lawn tractor/mower, workbenches, welding stuff, floor-tools, and too many things to mention..(including the overhead Loft/stairway created to maximize floorspace) …. and, Oh Yeah… a Cessna 170… and then added a Cessna 172… I found I had to empty-out the hangar to get the airplane parked most-deeply outside.

Move the tractor, move the off road vehicle, move the other off road vehicle, move the lawn tractor, …just to move the airplane closest to the door….so I can THEN move the Airstream,…Then…if I’m careful…I can get the other airplane out of the hangar… Then, if I’m leaving town and not just flying locally….put it all back to close the door.

ANY reduction in this merry-go-round would be a real time-saver…not to mention exertion…..

Bran-Sturm: If I could place the one airplane parked deepest on a rolling platform which would let me slide it sideways…. I could reduce a lot of this musical-chairs/objects game…

At the Harbor-Fright store they sell auto-dollies….. They squeeze the tires with two parallel rollers…and thereby Lift the vehicle off the concrete….and then the vehicle can be slid SIDEWAYS……

Bought a pair on-sale…brought them home…. and they WOULD work just FINE…. except the rollers won’t move sufficiently close toward each other to work on 6:00-6 tires.

Pull the telescoping square-frames apart…. Shorten the Outer, serrated hollow 2” square tubing…. Weld the shortened tubing back together so as to reduce the “blank-space” and have only the serrated portion of the square-tubng remaining….. and… VOILA!

I can now move/slide the airplane sideways to maneuver it around objects…stuff it in a corner or rotate it clockwise/counterclockwise… whatever I desire. The Main wheels on the swiveling dollies….and the tailwheel swivels already…. so Problem Solved!

NOW the only thing to be forewarned about is to make certain the tires haven’t lost air…so that the rollers still clear the lower edges of wheelpants…. and that hasn’t been an issue. (If no wheelpants are mounted, this would never be an issue, of course…… but I just mention it for those who DO have them…. Keep your tires inflated to specification and there’s no problem.)

This has made my task of moving airplanes around in a limited-space hangar Much Better!

I see HF has their “better” quality brand on-sale this week. (I had bought the cheaper ones that sold full-price at $89 and they work fine, so if you’re not in a position to take advantage of this weeks sale…. just FYI.

BTW, I first tried these other types but they were too much trouble because I had to jack the airplane up…. Twice…. just to get it ON these flat dollies…THEN had to jack the airplane up AGAIN… Twice…. to get it OFF them. The Telescoping dollys are the better answer.

[Hawkeyenfo]

I'm going to Harbor Fright!! Great idea

[Joe Moilanen]

That's great! I've always thought about fabricating some but never got around to it. Don't scratch them wheel pants! I think I sold them to you... I can't remember for sure. I know I sold you some wing tips when I put my Sportsman kit on.

Joe
4518C

[GAHorn]

(Joe must be addressing Hawkeye) The only issue I found was that the rollers are too far apart for small aircraft tires…. having been designed for large auto/truck tires…. they don’t come close-together sufficiently to lift a lightplane….unless one shortens the Outer sq. tubing. I used a chop-saw to remove the non-serrated portion….and welded it back together.
(If this isn’t clear, I can take pics tomorrow to illustrate)

[mit]

When I worked KC-135's we used Snap-On ones like your first pic to pull mains. Really helped with not gouging the axles.