In article ,
"Bill Daniels" wrote:

"Jason Armistead" wrote in message
om...
From an Australian perspective, we found a few gotchas recently when
we imported our DG-1000.

1. Don't rely on the standard trailer packing. Ask the factory to put
extra foam rubber padding between the close-fitting areas, especially
between wing attachment points on the fuselage and the wings alongside
them. Sometimes with all the unusual rolling action on a boat (not
experienced on the road in normal use) things can "wander" more than
usual and the wings might have more of a tendency to lean toward the
fuselage if the trailer is rolled about its axis (depends on which way
they pack the containers into the boat, I guess). Another glider that
arrived in OZ at a similar time to ours had some evidence of "trailer
rash" during shipping.

2. Make sure the glider fuselage AND the belly dolly are well tied
down to prevent, as happened in our case, the dolly from rolling
forward so it wasn't supporting things right.


I've looked inside a lot of trailers and I don't understand why such poorly
secured fittings are used. Perhaps it's just that the owner never sees what
is happening to the glider inside the trailer as it rolls down the highway.

Ocean shipping can't be as bad as the pounding the glider gets on an average
USA highway. Most of the time you can't see the road surface further than
100 meters ahead since the view is blocked by the next vehicle, hill or
turn. Unexpected "whoop-de-doos" can launch a trailer to horrifying
heights.

I've seen a meter of air under the wheels of a glider trailer when it
encounter an unexpected bump. That HAD to hurt something.

Bill Daniels


I forgot about a particularly rough railroad crossing while towing my
glider trailer one night. My van, trailer, and glider survived the short
"flight" and subsequent rough landing. Unfortunately, one of my varios
was trashed and had to have the meter movement replaced. My ASI was
damaged as well.

I wonder how many of us ever bother to have a trailer wheels balanced?