Trailer Weight

[rlovinggood]

I weighed my trailer yesterday (Sunday) at a local truck stop, using
their truck scales.

2,040 lbs total. Tongue weight is 180 lbs.

Trailer: 2006 year model Swan
Glider: 1970 LS1-d

Extra stuff in trailer: steel wing stand, aluminum tow out gear, tail
dolly, one folding aluminum chair, plastic bucket, two gallons water,
4 aluminum tie down stakes, some towels, tool box with a couple of
Vice Grips and a couple of screw drivers and an assortment of
collected stuff, two extra wheel chocks, and the spare tire.

That turned out about 300 lbs more than I had expected.

Why do I care? Just want to know when selecting my next tow vehicle
that will replace the 2000 Accord. Guess this leaves out a Mini or a
Miata or the mighty Deux Chevaux (ente, duck, whatever)

Ray Lovinggood
Carrboro, North Carolina, USA

[[email protected]]

On Oct 29, 4:03 pm, rlovinggood > wrote:
> I weighed my trailer yesterday (Sunday) at a local truck stop, using
> their truck scales.
>
> 2,040 lbs total. Tongue weight is 180 lbs.
>
> Trailer: 2006 year model Swan
> Glider: 1970 LS1-d
>
> Extra stuff in trailer: steel wing stand, aluminum tow out gear, tail
> dolly, one folding aluminum chair, plastic bucket, two gallons water,
> 4 aluminum tie down stakes, some towels, tool box with a couple of
> Vice Grips and a couple of screw drivers and an assortment of
> collected stuff, two extra wheel chocks, and the spare tire.
>
> That turned out about 300 lbs more than I had expected.
>
> Why do I care? Just want to know when selecting my next tow vehicle
> that will replace the 2000 Accord. Guess this leaves out a Mini or a
> Miata or the mighty Deux Chevaux (ente, duck, whatever)
>
> Ray Lovinggood
> Carrboro, North Carolina, USA

Mine: Speed Astir II, Komet trailer, tools and other expected support
equipement.
1,836 pounds total, with 186 on the hitch. Weighed with scales used to
do a weight and balance.

[[email protected]]

Ray:

Check out Bob Carlton's article of Oct 9th. It's a few pages back.
There will be lots of stuff on getting the job done with a minimum of
tow veh. I think Bob has the right idea. Go for the mass. Whops,
what's that I just ran over a Prius?

Zulu

[Bob Kuykendall]

On Oct 29, 4:03 pm, rlovinggood > wrote:
>...
> 2,040 lbs total. Tongue weight is 180 lbs.
>...

Wow, that's incredible. No wonder you guys buy such big cars.

For comparison, my HP-11 had an empty weight of about 450 lbs with O2
and battery, and its enclosed trailer (which Steve Smith originally
built for his PIK-20) weighed about 350 lbs. With assembly gear and
dollies I don't think the whole rig ever saw the high side of 900 lbs.
It towed quite sweetly across the Sierra behind Volvo 740 and 240,
Mazda B2000 pickup, and even 1.8 liter Subaru Brat.

>From deconstructing several glider trailers, what I've found is that
the greatest single weight contributor (next to the glider) is often
the plywood flooring. On a typical 15m trailer with 26'x4' of floor
area, the floor takes almost 80 lbs of 1/4" plywood, about 117 lbs of
3/8" plywood, or 156 lbs of 1/2" plywood. And I've seen two-seater
trailers that used upwards of 300 lbs of 3/4" plywood flooring.

The lighter trailers tend to have very thin floors, supported by many
lateral underfloor elements. The aforementioned HP-11 trailer had non-
structural fiberglass floor sheeting; you had to be careful to step
only on the longerons or dolly rails lest your feet go all the way
through to the ground. Sure, that made it a somewhat suboptimal
conveyance. But it beat the hell out of buying a huge ol' tow car.

Bob K.

[[email protected]]

On Oct 30, 7:03 pm, Bob Kuykendall > wrote:
> On Oct 29, 4:03 pm, rlovinggood > wrote:
>
> >...
> > 2,040 lbs total. Tongue weight is 180 lbs.
> >...
>
> Wow, that's incredible. No wonder you guys buy such big cars.
>
> For comparison, my HP-11 had an empty weight of about 450 lbs with O2
> and battery, and its enclosed trailer (which Steve Smith originally
> built for his PIK-20) weighed about 350 lbs. With assembly gear and
> dollies I don't think the whole rig ever saw the high side of 900 lbs.
> It towed quite sweetly across the Sierra behind Volvo 740 and 240,
> Mazda B2000 pickup, and even 1.8 liter Subaru Brat.
>
> >From deconstructing several glider trailers, what I've found is that
>
> the greatest single weight contributor (next to the glider) is often
> the plywood flooring. On a typical 15m trailer with 26'x4' of floor
> area, the floor takes almost 80 lbs of 1/4" plywood, about 117 lbs of
> 3/8" plywood, or 156 lbs of 1/2" plywood. And I've seen two-seater
> trailers that used upwards of 300 lbs of 3/4" plywood flooring.
>
> The lighter trailers tend to have very thin floors, supported by many
> lateral underfloor elements. The aforementioned HP-11 trailer had non-
> structural fiberglass floor sheeting; you had to be careful to step
> only on the longerons or dolly rails lest your feet go all the way
> through to the ground. Sure, that made it a somewhat suboptimal
> conveyance. But it beat the hell out of buying a huge ol' tow car.
>
> Bob K.

To further Bob's point, the floor in a Cobra trailer is a light-weight
sandwich. They offer a heavier (and much cheaper) floor, but
nobody buys it. Other trailers cost less but weigh more...

[[email protected]]

160-180 lbs nose weight sounds a lot. About 100 would be my preference
for stability, 50 or less to make it easier to manhandle but with some
sacrifice of stability. According to my car handbook, max permitted
nose weight is determined by the manufacturer of the bar (tongue) on
the front of the trailer. In my case (Lak 17), that is 100 kilograms
or 220 lbs, but I would not load it up at the front anything like that
heavily.

Chris N.

[Bob Kuykendall]

On Oct 31, 4:20 am, wrote:
> 160-180 lbs nose weight sounds a lot. About 100 would be my preference
> for stability, 50 or less to make it easier to manhandle but with some
> sacrifice of stability...

Just as a reference point, while using glider trailers to haul molds
and tooling around I've occasionally had to drive long distance with
zero tongue weight. Stability didn't seem to be a problem at all,
though I was pretty constantly worried about having the tongue lift
off the tow ball. We checked it often.

[John Smith]

Bob Kuykendall wrote:

>> 160-180 lbs nose weight sounds a lot. About 100 would be my preference
>> for stability, 50 or less to make it easier to manhandle but with some
>> sacrifice of stability...

> Just as a reference point, while using glider trailers to haul molds
> and tooling around I've occasionally had to drive long distance with
> zero tongue weight. Stability didn't seem to be a problem at all,
> though I was pretty constantly worried about having the tongue lift
> off the tow ball. We checked it often.

My Anschau trailer (for a single seater) is placarded: "Tongue weight
4%, more than 25kg not nessecairy."

[Martin Gregorie[_1_]]

John Smith wrote:
> Bob Kuykendall wrote:
>
>>> 160-180 lbs nose weight sounds a lot. About 100 would be my preference
>>> for stability, 50 or less to make it easier to manhandle but with some
>>> sacrifice of stability...
>
>> Just as a reference point, while using glider trailers to haul molds
>> and tooling around I've occasionally had to drive long distance with
>> zero tongue weight. Stability didn't seem to be a problem at all,
>> though I was pretty constantly worried about having the tongue lift
>> off the tow ball. We checked it often.
>
> My Anschau trailer (for a single seater) is placarded: "Tongue weight
> 4%, more than 25kg not nessecairy."
>
Another data point.

I have an old, probably home built, ladder frame, ply floor alloy-skin
Libelle trailer with around 20 lbs (10 kg) nose weight that tows stably
at up to 70 mph on the back of a 2 litre Focus estate. The trailer is
very low narrow with a semi-circular top. The fuselage dolly barely
clears the wing roots on either side when its rolled out and there's a
foot high fin-box thats only 4 inches higher than the Libelle's fin.
Practicality is borderline but the cross section is nice and small.

I'm guessing the nose weight: its an easy single hand lift to put it on
or off the car's ball. It's much lighter than lifting the Libelle's
tow-out tow hitch to put that on the car to go and fly.


--
martin@ | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Essex, UK
org |