Hangar dolly for heavy glider

[Dave Nadler]

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

[Dave Nadler]

Anybody ever used either of these ?
http://www.pacificaerosport.com/products.htm
http://www.zendextool.com/gojak/

[Peter von Tresckow]

The gojack works great on trailers but I've never used it on a glider. It
would probably work but you do need some free space for the foot pedal.

Pete

[Dave Nadler]

Additional info: 900 lb weight on main-wheel...

[Renny]

Dave,
I have the dolly from Pacific Aerosport and it works great for my LAK-17B FES which has an empty weight of 752 lbs. Would it work for 900 lbs? My guess is "yes," but you may want to call them to confirm....
Thx - Renny

[Steve Leonard]

On Thursday, February 28, 2013 10:35:47 AM UTC-6, Dave Nadler wrote:
> Additional info: 900 lb weight on main-wheel...

Tim Mara sells a version of the GoJack. You will notice from the pictures on his site and the ones direct from the GoJack site that the jack is tilted on the glider version, to get the lever out away from the fuselage.

I haven't used either, so I can't say anything about the functionality or durability. The big advantage of the GoJack is that you don't have to push the glider onto it. You park the glider, bring the dolly up to it, pick the glider up with the dolly, and off you go.

Steve

[Eric Greenwell]

$80 at Harbor Freight - #67287

No idea about the quality.

--
Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA (change ".netto" to ".us" to
email me)

[Dave Nadler]

On Thursday, February 28, 2013 11:52:58 AM UTC-5, Steve Leonard wrote:
> The big advantage of the GoJack is that you don't have to push the glider
> onto it. You park the glider, bring the dolly up to it, pick the glider up
> with the dolly, and off you go.

Us cool pilots don't push gliders, we taxi under electric power ;-)

[Tim Mara]

I have them here
http://www.wingsandwheels.com/page46.htm

tim

"Dave Nadler" <d...@nadler.com> wrote in message
news:d1e76324-10b9-41f4...@googlegroups.com...

[Dave Springford]

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.

[Dave Nadler]

Thanks Dave !

[Dave Springford]

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.

[Dave Nadler]

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

[Andrew]

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.

[bumper]

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.

[mzi...@hotmail.com]

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

[Rob Brown]

On 2013-03-03, mzi...@hotmail.com <mzi...@hotmail.com> 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 mylas...@gmcl.com

[mzi...@hotmail.com]

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.

[tstock]

>
> 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 :D

A joke btw

[JohnDeRosa]

About the automotive units in general and Harbor Freight cheapie unit
in particular. http://www.harborfreight.com/1250-lb-capacity-mechanical-wheel-dolly-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

[Bill D]

The Gojack or this one will probably work - with modifications. However, there's an opportunity to do better by using the jack-able fuselage trailer dollies used with some fixed-gear twins as a model. By lifting the fuselage instead of the wheel, the tire and gear doors are accessable for maintenance