Hangar dolly for heavy glider

On Thursday, February 28, 2013 6:26:39 PM UTC-5, Dave Springford wrote:
Dave,
We bought the Pacific Aerosport jack for our club and use it to
lift our 505 and K-21's. It does the job - no problem.

Thanks Dave !

and, you can't use the automotive units. We tried that a few years ago. Since they are designed for the large diameter car tire, they do not get under the glider tire and just squeeze it.

The Pacific Aerosport unit is modified with smaller rollers at the correct height that pick up the small glider tire.

I got an offline thumbs-up for the GoJak® Model 4100™ that
Tim sells. The glider owner is borrowing one of these to try,
and will buy one if he is also impressed.
Thanks for the info,
Best Regards, Dave

At 15:22 28 February 2013, Dave Nadler wrote:
I have a customer looking for hangar dolly for heavy
glider (Antares). Anything that works for Duo, Arcs,
DG-500/1000, or similar will probably work. Anybody
know of commercial fabricators of such things, or
a used one available ?
Thanks,
Best Regards, Dave


One has to check the caster wheels are properly chosen. Most of
the glider dolleys that I've seen use hardware-store casters with
hard rubber wheels, which are generally not adequate for a 900lb
glider, since they typically have max load ratings of about 150lbs
per caster, i.e. 600lbs max for a 4-caster dolley. Looking online,
the WC-99 caster from Reid Supply Co looks a good replacement
caster, since it has a max load of 500lbs per caster, and the
wheels are phenolic, which deforms much less than rubber. A
cheaper alternative is to use a caster with steel wheels, but I'm
told steel wheels can mark the concrete floor of a hangar.

On Thursday, February 28, 2013 1:58:14 PM UTC-8, Eric Greenwell wrote:
On 2/28/2013 7:29 AM, Dave Nadler wrote:



$80 at Harbor Freight - #67287



Like their previous hydraulic wheel dolly (which I've read is prone to leak), the mechanical #67287 has pick up rollers that will be too far apart at their minimum distance (13.5" center to center) to pick up glider wheels. The jack would need to modified by cutting off the mount (or making a new one) and welding it back on so it's closer to the movable roller.

This is an early video (before final paint) of the pneumatic "super dolly" I designed and built. One small tank of Nitrogen will run the dolly for most of a soaring season with two "lifts" each day. It has two linear bearings to keep the frame parallel and four pneumatic cylinders to do the lifting. One of the castors is lockable so I can "steer" if needed. The "cradle" is separate from the frame so I could change the contour if I ever switched gliders.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRnQBWBuHU0

On Thursday, February 28, 2013 9:22:55 AM UTC-6, Dave Nadler wrote:
I have a customer looking for hangar dolly for heavy

glider (Antares). Anything that works for Duo, Arcs,

DG-500/1000, or similar will probably work. Anybody

know of commercial fabricators of such things, or

a used one available ?

Thanks,

Best Regards, Dave

On 2013-03-03, wrote:
This is an early video ...

Neat!

... One small tank of Nitrogen ...

So I ignorantly (and off-topic) ask, why nitrogen? Why not air,
which is 80% nitrogen anyway?



--

Rob Brown

I chose nitrogen because I had the bottle and a CGA 580 fitting sitting in the corner of the garage...

I've recently finished a new ro-ro design which lets me pull the glider onto the dolly and then pull off the dolly while it's connected to my tow bar. I'll try to add a picture soon.

So I ignorantly (and off-topic) ask, why nitrogen? Why not air,

which is 80% nitrogen anyway?


Because Nitrogen requires fancy green caps and an extra charge to fill the tires

A joke btw

About the automotive units in general and Harbor Freight cheapie unit
in particular. http://www.harborfreight.com/1250-lb...lly-67287.html

I looked at the HF unit and here are some comments;

1) It can be adjusted fore/aft for some pretty small tires including
the common 350x135 glider tires. I don't think that it will "pinch"
tires (as mentioned by Dave Springford). YMMV.
2) If the width needs to be narrowed, the HF unit could "easily" be
changed (cough...with a hacksaw and muscle). However, the wider
stance may be good for stability and dealing with #3.
3) The jack handle may need to be bent or adjusted to get out of the
way of the fuselage (as Steve Leonard mentions) while still retain
functionally. The other brands mentioned above tilt the entire lift
mechanism, not just bend the handle. This may be the trickiest thing
to correct but may be unneeded due to #2.
4) Sure is cheaper than the alternatives! Allows for low cost
experimentation!

- John