Several years ago my dad made one of the hardest decisions he has ever had to make. He decided to let me have his 1941 Franklin powered cub that he had owned since the early '60s. I know he struggled with that decision but I think in the end he wanted to see his Grandkids get to fly in it more than just once or twice a year when we would make it back to the St. Louis area to see him. After being on several waiting lists for years for a hangar, one finally came available to me. So, after a lot of prep work by my dad and others, we were finally able to move our '41 Cub from Greensfield (M71) Missouri to Greeneville (GCY) Tennessee. The move included the cub, about 7-10 complete or partial Franklin engines and almost 50 years worth of accumulated spare parts and pieces. Just a small portion of this is shown in the first attached picture.
I got several quotes from Uhaul and several other trucking companies. From my measurements the cub and most of the stuff would fit in a 26' Uhaul truck. We ended up going with Budget rental for the truck. Their quote, $400 for 625 miles, was about $200 cheaper than Uhaul. The truck we got was a 24' box truck, with a standard loading height instead of the much lower loading height Uhaul offers. This turned out to be a good thing for loading but was a pain for unloading.
We spent two full days taking the wings and tail off the cub and loading everything into the truck. My dad had spent several days before that disconnecting the control cables and taking the wing fairings off. We bought four small furniture mover style dolly from harbor freight. They are basically just 4 2x4s in a square with castoring wheels on them. We screwed a couple of more 2x4s and some carpet to these to make a small framework to support the wings. The second picture shows the four we made up. We tilted the wings up so that the leading edge rested in the dolly. These were then wheeled onto the truck and then large ratchet straps were wrapped around the wings, under the carpet and then connected to the side of the truck above the wings. The bottoms of the dolly were screwed in place so that the wing could not go anywhere. The carpet supported the weight of the wings and spread this weight out over a large area while the straps kept everything in place so nothing moved around.
Next we loaded several spare engines into the front of the truck along with a couple of boxes of spare parts. Once these were secured with more straps we loaded the fuselage. We got lucky since Greensfield has a loading dock that was a standard height so all we had to do was back the truck up to it and wheel the fuselage in. We put it in tail first with the tailwheel resting on a support above the engines we previously loaded. The tail was secured so it could bounce around and the wheels were chocked in place with wood screwed to the wooden truck bed. We then took more straps and wrapped them around the axles and tires to keep the front from bouncing around. Nothing moved except the plane did slide sideways a bit. It moved about six inches, but luckily nothing touched anything else and no damage was done. After the fact it was obvious I should have thought about it moving sideways, but when we loaded I was concentrating on it moving front or back.
After the fuselage was loaded, we loaded in everything else that would fit. This included spare tail parts, spare struts, an old set of spars, boxes of engine parts, three extra props and lots of other misc stuff accumulated over the years. Everything fit under the wings and fuselage and I made sure that everything was secured in place. The third picture shows two of my helpers who will tell you they did all of the work. Once everything was packed under the fuselage we added a couple of more engines to the back of the truck and we were on our way. Actually we spent another half day loading a bunch of shelves and benches and stuff on a trailer to take with us too.
700 miles, another $100 to budget for going over on the mileage and about 12 hours later the cub was at her new home in Greeneville. Greeneville has some pretty new and nice hangars and I feel lucky to have gotten one. We unpacked the stuff on the trailer and set up the shelves. Then we started pulling all the boxes and parts from under the fuselage. It was nice to see nothing was damaged except two small spots where paint had been rubbed off on the spare struts from where they had shifted a little. Once everything was removed so that we could get to the fuselage we hit our first snag. We didn't have a loading dock to use to get the fuselage out and we couldn't find ramps that were long enough. Everything we had available made too sharp of an angle such that the bottom of the fuselage would hit the truck since we couldn't push the tail up high enough in the truck.
We broke for lunch and thought things over. We found a small hill near the fenceline behind the hangar. We were able to back the truck up pretty close to the hill. We then took our ramps (2x12s) and put them straight out from the back of the truck to the hill. I then wheeled the plane out across the ramps to the hill. The wheels were then chocked to keep them in place and while I held the tail straight out my brother-in-law pulled the truck away from the hill and the plane. We then slowly backed the plane off the hill and pulled it into the hangar.
So now it sits in its new home and I am slowly working my way through everything to get her back into the air. Hopefully by next spring there will be another cub flying around the East Tennessee area. Unfortunately, the cub won't make it to the Elizabethton fly-in, but I will try and make it there in a friend's Citabria or a 185. If anyone need more info about moving or packing a cub into a rental truck, let me know and I will help any way I can. Thanks for reading, Scott
I got several quotes from Uhaul and several other trucking companies. From my measurements the cub and most of the stuff would fit in a 26' Uhaul truck. We ended up going with Budget rental for the truck. Their quote, $400 for 625 miles, was about $200 cheaper than Uhaul. The truck we got was a 24' box truck, with a standard loading height instead of the much lower loading height Uhaul offers. This turned out to be a good thing for loading but was a pain for unloading.
We spent two full days taking the wings and tail off the cub and loading everything into the truck. My dad had spent several days before that disconnecting the control cables and taking the wing fairings off. We bought four small furniture mover style dolly from harbor freight. They are basically just 4 2x4s in a square with castoring wheels on them. We screwed a couple of more 2x4s and some carpet to these to make a small framework to support the wings. The second picture shows the four we made up. We tilted the wings up so that the leading edge rested in the dolly. These were then wheeled onto the truck and then large ratchet straps were wrapped around the wings, under the carpet and then connected to the side of the truck above the wings. The bottoms of the dolly were screwed in place so that the wing could not go anywhere. The carpet supported the weight of the wings and spread this weight out over a large area while the straps kept everything in place so nothing moved around.
Next we loaded several spare engines into the front of the truck along with a couple of boxes of spare parts. Once these were secured with more straps we loaded the fuselage. We got lucky since Greensfield has a loading dock that was a standard height so all we had to do was back the truck up to it and wheel the fuselage in. We put it in tail first with the tailwheel resting on a support above the engines we previously loaded. The tail was secured so it could bounce around and the wheels were chocked in place with wood screwed to the wooden truck bed. We then took more straps and wrapped them around the axles and tires to keep the front from bouncing around. Nothing moved except the plane did slide sideways a bit. It moved about six inches, but luckily nothing touched anything else and no damage was done. After the fact it was obvious I should have thought about it moving sideways, but when we loaded I was concentrating on it moving front or back.
After the fuselage was loaded, we loaded in everything else that would fit. This included spare tail parts, spare struts, an old set of spars, boxes of engine parts, three extra props and lots of other misc stuff accumulated over the years. Everything fit under the wings and fuselage and I made sure that everything was secured in place. The third picture shows two of my helpers who will tell you they did all of the work. Once everything was packed under the fuselage we added a couple of more engines to the back of the truck and we were on our way. Actually we spent another half day loading a bunch of shelves and benches and stuff on a trailer to take with us too.
700 miles, another $100 to budget for going over on the mileage and about 12 hours later the cub was at her new home in Greeneville. Greeneville has some pretty new and nice hangars and I feel lucky to have gotten one. We unpacked the stuff on the trailer and set up the shelves. Then we started pulling all the boxes and parts from under the fuselage. It was nice to see nothing was damaged except two small spots where paint had been rubbed off on the spare struts from where they had shifted a little. Once everything was removed so that we could get to the fuselage we hit our first snag. We didn't have a loading dock to use to get the fuselage out and we couldn't find ramps that were long enough. Everything we had available made too sharp of an angle such that the bottom of the fuselage would hit the truck since we couldn't push the tail up high enough in the truck.
We broke for lunch and thought things over. We found a small hill near the fenceline behind the hangar. We were able to back the truck up pretty close to the hill. We then took our ramps (2x12s) and put them straight out from the back of the truck to the hill. I then wheeled the plane out across the ramps to the hill. The wheels were then chocked to keep them in place and while I held the tail straight out my brother-in-law pulled the truck away from the hill and the plane. We then slowly backed the plane off the hill and pulled it into the hangar.
So now it sits in its new home and I am slowly working my way through everything to get her back into the air. Hopefully by next spring there will be another cub flying around the East Tennessee area. Unfortunately, the cub won't make it to the Elizabethton fly-in, but I will try and make it there in a friend's Citabria or a 185. If anyone need more info about moving or packing a cub into a rental truck, let me know and I will help any way I can. Thanks for reading, Scott
