Tango Juliet

I'm looking for ideas for a system of transporting multiple airplanes in the bed of my pick-up. Currently I have a sheet of plywood with eye hooks mounted into it and bungee cords to keep the fuselage in place while going down the road, and a simple PVC rack for two wings. My truck is a 2007 GMC 1500 Sierra with a camper shell. One member of our club built a modular system of sorts for his heli's. Right now my aircraft are in the .40-.60 size range but I hope to go larger in the near future and include my girlfriends plane. Post pics if you can of what you have, have had, what worked well, what didn't.

Thanks,

TJ

RCKen

My Feedback: (9)

I have a shell on my Nissan Frontier truck, but since this is a work truck and can't make permenant changes to the back of the truck. I have to be able to get my work tools in the back. So what I do is use 2 adjustable curtain rods to make a rack across the top of the bed. I wrapped the rods with foam to pad the rods. For most .40-.60 sized planes I can get them in the truck assembled. But even for planes that I have to disassemble this makes for a good system to transporting them.

As you can see, I can get quite a bit in the truck!!!

Ken

roknHS

Go to the local building supply and buy 6 solid casters (not the swivel kind).........bolt those to the bottom of your plywood so they run in the bottom of the corrugations in your pickup bed.........use common sense to space your casters evenly..........2 up front, 2 in the middle and 2 toward the rear...........now you don't have to crawl in to the front on your hands and knees to retrieve your stuff........it makes a big drawer out of the back of your truck. Find a Harbor Freight catalog and order a set of folding table legs...usually about $10-$20. Bolt 1 under the plywood between your casters so when you pull out the plywood drawer you can fold down the leg to support the plywood when you want to pull it out and leave it out for optimum access. You'll need some 1" PVC pipe for leg extensions so your plywood will be close to level when pulled out....3/4" plywood works best cause it is stiff enough not to flex and belly much....find a buddy with a wire feed welder.........get some light 3" wide flat material and some thin wall square tubing that you can fit a piece of 1" PVC pipe inside.........make 4 brackets that you can support a short piece of 1" PVC vertically.............bolt two to each edge of the plywood approximately the fender-well length apart........now you use these 4 PVC uprights (2 on each side) to fashion horizontal wing holders........with the use of T's, elbows or crosses you can customize the wing holders width and heigth. Maybe as many as 4 wings on each side. And for more support and added possibilities use some PVC pipe to connect the wing holder uprights across your pick up bed on top.

Pull your drawer out........put down your table leg........load your heavy flight box up front.......mount your planes to the deck...........hang your wings in the customized holders.

You should be able to hold three 1/4 scale planes and all the support equipment easily.

As an added bit of fluff........if you have a trailer plug on your bumper.......make a plug in extension cord with a banana plug end so you can charge your stuff off the bumper of your pick up.

Stick 40

HI,
I have the same truck , with a matching Cap on it. I used rubber bungy cords ( the heavy ones ) and criss crossed them in the middle and a couple stright across in the back and front. I put the wings up there and the planes below, I can get three or four planes in it. I can put planes up there on the rubber bungy cords ( lite planes , the heavy ones bounce ). I like the idea because I can take them down , if I want to use the pickup for a pickup anytime. Some of the guys make carriers out ot PCV pipe and they work real well, but if you want to haul anything else, you must take it out.

Edwin

My Feedback: (2)

This is what I used to use. Now I use a light trailer pulled by a honda civic.
Edwin

Tango Juliet

There's a few good ideas there. Thanks guys. I'm going to put a little more thought into it, but I may incorporate a little of everyone's ideas. More responses with more pictures can only help.