Securing glider trailers in shipping containers

On Tuesday, August 12, 2014 9:06:36 AM UTC-4, Mark628CA wrote:
I totally DISAGREE with S_O_F about putting your glider on springy supports and lashing it down with shock cords. Allowing ANY movement will result in a glider "shaken, not stirred" on a long bouncy trip.

2G's plan to remove the running gear means that the normal function of the tires, torsion bar, and shocks will be absent. Likewise the hitch will not be floating on a ball and therefore not have the benefit of the suspension and tires of the tow vehicle.

Assembled gliders get bounced around in turbulence all the time, and it hardly matters. It's the hard jolts of the container being set down at high deacceleration on top a stack of containers, or bumping a corner, that would be the biggest risk. (The damage caused by jolting came up recently on RAS in a discussion about shipping gliders by rail.)

The means of attaching the glider to the trailer could (and perhaps should) be rigid, extra strong and unyielding, but the attachment of the trailer to the container should have some elastic flex (with common sense secondary restraints to limit the maximum movement).

My remarks are for entertain purposes only. And as others have pointed out, I have never loaded a glider trailer into a shipping container. Sure, using coil spring mattresses and shock cord is 'a crazy idea', but the prevailing faith in a 'strong as hell and as rigid as possible' mounting scheme puzzles me. No structure likes to be jolted.