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Old September 17th 18, 08:45 AM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
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Default stowing horizontal stabilizer on tail boom in trailer

We've had a few club trailers with this setup - much like the Kestrel picture functionally but made of two wood pieces with felt pads connected to each other by square section steel tube and strapped to the fuselage. The fuselage taper prevents the saddle from sliding. They work but I've never found it to be a desirable setup myself. Even in the box trailer my ship came in I found it much easier to use the hanging-from-the-ceiling type stowage the builder installed. I found the horizontal stabilizer both added weight to the tail when moving the fuselage out of or into the trailer and made it more awkward to get a grip on it. It does have the advantage over most mount-to-the-floor holders in that you don't need to remove it from the trailer and secure it somewhere before taking the fuselage out though. None of those club trailers were tall enough inside to use the overhead mount for the horizontal stabilizer though. We do have a privately owned Phoebus C at the field in a box trailer where the horizontal stabilizer sits in a floor mounted bracket to the left of the left wing and doesn't need to be taken out before the fuselage and wings - really convenient but unfortunately impossible on most box trailers I've seen due to lack of space.