Garrett Fisher

Author, Pilot, & Adventurer

  • Flying Videos
  • Writings
  • Best of the Blog
  • Press
  • Maps
  • Economics
  • TEDx Talk: Forget Economics
  • About Me
  • Español

Connect

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • RSS
  • YouTube

Powered by Genesis

Loading the Airplane into the Shipping Container for Germany

February 12, 2016 by Garrett

One would think that the magnitude of the problem of moving an aircraft was taken care of by taking the wings off. That is all well and good, except the aircraft must now get lifted 5 feet up into a shipping container, which is sitting on a semi-trailer, and the plane cannot fly to do it, and it must be done precisely in concert with moving all of our stuff, at a choreographed time. At 788 pounds (less wings, so lets say 650 pounds), it’s not an easy prospect.

I built an elaborate ramp out of a pile of lumber from the local lumberyard. More specifically, I walked in with a rather complex list of items needed, and they didn’t want to do the math, so I had to break down the end cuts I wanted, and the origin pieces, mapped to their inventory, with a giant spreadsheet. It was a picture perfect scene where your math teacher from third grade points and says: “See, math is important!” The only problem with that fantasy is that I had a big pile of wood left over afterward.

The ramp was 16’ long, with a five-foot height, built far too strong, but it got the job done. I devised an ingenious scheme to mount 30” fixed studs along it, remove the pieces that elevate the ramp from ground to 5 feet, and then use it as a platform to place one wing under it, one over, and the tail on a brace over that in the shipping container. On the German side, I will reattach the ascending columns and it becomes an exit ramp.

The first hiccup in the plan was the consistent snowfall, falling all over my ramp and creating sheets of ice for the two weeks prior to the move. As it was on the north side of the house, it did not get sun, so I had to shovel and spread salt. Sigh.

Moving day meant that the plane had to come up a twisting driveway from the hangar, wings had to be carried, and struts driven up. I would have fired the engine up and driven it up (it taxies under its own power, wings not necessary), except the fuel tank is in the wing, which was now off. So, we hooked it up to the back of the truck and pulled it up.

The shipping container was five and a half hours late.

So we waited, and waited, and waited. Meanwhile, it was snowing like hell and blowing like crazy, so we had to weight the wings so the wind wouldn’t take them flying (they are designed to do that, FYI). We put plastic on the cockpit area as I just had thousands of dollars of Euro-compliant avionics installed, and I didn’t fancy water getting all over it.

Eventually, we loaded, after dark, in a snowstorm, while it was fiercely cold and windy. It couldn’t have gotten any better. Well, except for the fact that my ingenious hybrid ramp repurposing protocol didn’t work. The tail was 4” too tall, meaning that the rudder would smack through the ceiling. [expletive, most common form]

The ramp couldn’t go (somebody got $200 of free wood). I had to improvise. And I had already packed the box of straps, which was now blocked by all of our possessions, in the front of the container, under about 3,000 pounds of stuff. [expletive, resigned self-damning/”I hate the universe” form]

With minimal resources, a waiting charge of $100/hour hanging over my head, and the hardware store closed, I made it work, I’ll say that much. It was improvising, par excellence. It helps that I have a grandfather that moves airplanes on a car trailer all the time and I was frequently impressed into service during load/unload (that’s a whole book right there).

The container door was closed and everything we own, except for the car, was off, getting driven to a rail yard in Salt Lake City, riding a train to the port in New York, heading on a ship to Bremerhaven, Germany, and then riding by truck to its new home south of Frankfurt. I couldn’t help but think at this moment of countless relatives I have never met, people who left Germany and Poland for better lives in America, crossing on ships heading west, passing through Ellis Island, the pioneers heading west, the transcontinental railroad, Manifest Destiny……….and here I am doing it all in reverse, my earthly belongings riding on the pathways that became wagon trails that changed into railroads, highways, and airports, all another chapter in the complex story of human migration.

There is the ramp…..
IMG_0761 (9 of 13)

Tail feathers, wrapped in plastic. That was the wife’s idea, and is was very smart.
P - 1 (1)

Wings being prevented from flying.
P - 1 (2)

Airplane all ready for towing.
P - 1 (3)

Driving the lift struts from the hangar.
P-

Improvised. I laid in bed that night wondering if I failed to brace something and finally resigned myself that its insured and I know how to fix anything that could happen in shipping.
P - 1

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Email subscription form header
Subscribe
Your email address:*
Please wait...
Please enter all required fields Click to hide
Correct invalid entries Click to hide
Powered by FeedBlitz

Blog Posts

  • Book #30: Pobles de la Cerdanya December 31, 2020
  • Book #29: Cadí-Moixeró & El Pedraforca December 27, 2020
  • Art Manifesto: Book #28: My Struggle December 25, 2020
  • Flight: Switzerland: Quickie in the Sky December 15, 2020
  • Book #27: Abstractions of the Alps December 4, 2020
  • Flights: Switzerland: Old Town Bern & the Summit of the Jungfrau November 28, 2020
  • Book #26: Flight of a Lifetime: A Monument to an Epic Flight in the Alps November 25, 2020
  • Flight: Italy: Larches of Val Ferret November 16, 2020
  • Magna Opera: Book #25: Glaciers of the Bernese Alps November 6, 2020
  • Flight: Italy: Mons Silvius, Berg der Berge November 1, 2020
  • Book #24: Alps in Monochrome October 3, 2020
  • Flight: Italy: Glaciers That Weren’t There September 19, 2020
  • The 500,000th Photograph August 15, 2020
  • Flights: Switzerland: Coitus Interruptus July 20, 2020
  • Flight: Switzerland (BE, VD, VS): Of Clouds and Humans June 7, 2020
  • Podcast Interview: The Not So Straight and Level Podcast April 14, 2020
  • Book #23: Mountain Texture: Glaciers of the Alps March 21, 2020
  • Flight: Switzerland (BE, VS, VD): The Alps in the Dead of Winter March 16, 2020
  • Flight: Italy, France: Finding Virginity at 13,166 Feet February 21, 2020
  • Book #22: The 300 Hour Summer: Flying the Rockies in a Piper Cub February 4, 2020

Archives

  • December 2020 (5)
  • November 2020 (5)
  • October 2020 (1)
  • September 2020 (1)
  • August 2020 (1)
  • July 2020 (1)
  • June 2020 (1)
  • April 2020 (1)
  • March 2020 (2)
  • February 2020 (2)
  • January 2020 (1)
  • December 2019 (3)
  • November 2019 (3)
  • October 2019 (1)
  • September 2019 (4)
  • August 2019 (3)
  • July 2019 (2)
  • June 2019 (2)
  • May 2019 (2)
  • April 2019 (2)
  • March 2019 (3)
  • February 2019 (1)
  • January 2019 (1)
  • December 2018 (2)
  • October 2018 (2)
  • September 2018 (2)
  • August 2018 (2)
  • July 2018 (3)
  • June 2018 (2)
  • May 2018 (2)
  • April 2018 (1)
  • March 2018 (4)
  • February 2018 (2)
  • January 2018 (2)
  • December 2017 (4)
  • November 2017 (4)
  • October 2017 (4)
  • September 2017 (4)
  • August 2017 (5)
  • July 2017 (3)
  • June 2017 (4)
  • May 2017 (5)
  • April 2017 (4)
  • March 2017 (5)
  • February 2017 (4)
  • January 2017 (1)
  • December 2016 (4)
  • November 2016 (5)
  • October 2016 (4)
  • September 2016 (6)
  • August 2016 (2)
  • July 2016 (4)
  • June 2016 (3)
  • May 2016 (1)
  • April 2016 (5)
  • March 2016 (5)
  • February 2016 (4)
  • January 2016 (6)
  • December 2015 (4)
  • November 2015 (5)
  • October 2015 (5)
  • September 2015 (8)
  • August 2015 (8)
  • July 2015 (8)
  • June 2015 (8)
  • May 2015 (4)
  • April 2015 (4)
  • March 2015 (5)
  • February 2015 (3)
  • January 2015 (2)
  • December 2014 (10)
  • November 2014 (4)
  • October 2014 (1)
  • September 2014 (3)
  • August 2014 (1)
  • July 2014 (6)
  • May 2014 (1)
  • March 2014 (1)
  • February 2014 (3)