MONTY THE ANSWER MAN ARCHIVE...
HANGARING
A SWIFT...
TOW HOOK...
From the Yahoo! Globe Temco Swift Club:
Is there anywhere in the tail or at the tail wheel where it is safe to
attach a hook to pull the plane back into the hanger? Don Cumpston <don@penn.com>
Don,
I was in a hangar for a short time that occasionally flooded (only when
it rained!). My short term answer was to winch the airplane backwards
up onto a set of auto ramps placed behind the main gear using a chain
hoist attached to a bolt I installed into the concrete floor. I used a
steel hook, padded with rubber tubing around the "Y" at the aft point
on the tail wheel trailing link, and routed the towline around the tail
wheel spring/shock. I considered installing a hook of the bolt that attaches
the spring/shock to the trailing link. It certainly is strong enough as
two shears on the AN3 bolt is good for about 6,000#. Unfortunately the
required FAA paper and that due to the geometry of the bottom end of the
spring/shock required a complicated assembly to prevent it from bearing
against the bottom of the spring/shock encouraged me to look for alternatives.
The padded hook worked for me, required no modifications to the airplane
and didn't even chip the paint on the tail gear assembly. -- Jared Smith
<jedswift@aol.com> N3378K
Don,
I, too had a hangar that required winching the plane in. I passed a couple
of 1/2 inch nylon braided lines from the winch cable hook through the
tail wheel a-frame and then on to the main gear legs. The a-frame helped
steer, but was not loaded in tension, since the lines were not directly
attached to it. The main gear legs carried the load. I only had to be
careful to not catch the brake lines when I attached the lines to the
legs. Worked well for me. I did it that way because I didn't feel the
tail wheel structure was strong enough to handle the tension I would impose.
Rocky Rutter <gc1bflyr@yahoo.com>
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