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From: "John Barrett" <jbarrett@carbinge.com>
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Subject: RE: [LML] Re: Dragger for 4P
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Sounds good in theory Hamid.  

I have tried it with an old Craftsman riding lawnmower.  Have put a towing
ball on the front and on the rear of the lawnmower.  

On the plus side, it's great to avoid the feet slipping on concrete and
struggling to push the plane into the hangar.  In practice, there is a HUGE
drawback in that steering the tractor needs to have the nose wheel of the
aircraft off the ground in order to work.  The very short coupling of the
turning response on the tractor combined with same on the airplane makes
controlling the path the airplane makes difficult.  I find that if I first
pull the airplane forward with the tractor in reverse until I have a
perfectly straight path centered into the hangar, I can get the plane in to
the hangar with one pass maybe half the time.  

It's really easy to get the nose wheel turned beyond limits.  On my
Beechcraft Sierra it's lucky that a rod end bearing is the weak link.  I
broke two of those before I figured out it was going beyond the limits when
trying to control the direction and the geometry.

I think if you could figure out a way to build a nose wheel pan on the front
of your tractor and winch the nose wheel off the ground into that pan, then
the system would work well.  Have been thinking about that and maybe will
build one.

John Barrett

-----Original Message-----
From: Lancair Mailing List [mailto:lml@lancaironline.net] On Behalf Of Hamid
Wasti
Sent: Monday, September 05, 2011 8:43 PM
To: lml@lancaironline.net
Subject: [LML] Re: Dragger for 4P

DISCLAIMER: This is just an idea, I have NOT personally tried this.

Most of the products like Dragger/Aero-Tow etc run for over $1K, some 
close to $2K. Yesterday at Sears I saw customer-return/refurbished "Lawn 
Tractors" for under $700 and new ones for about $900. Other sources 
likely have similar prices.

You can buy one of these, remove the mower deck and do a little 
engineering to attach a tow bar and now you have a tug with a 15+ HP 
engine and electric start. You may be able to recoup some of your 
initial cost by selling the removed mower deck on eBay or Craig's List.

Regards,

Hamid

Ronald STEVENS wrote:
> I am using the Aero-Tow. I bought it for my old cirrus, but I could adapt
it for the 4p. It is 5 year old and still works perfectly. 
>
> It works really great and would recommend this.
>
> == Ronald 
>
> On Sep 4, 2011, at 8:18 PM, Bob Rickard wrote:
>
>   
>> Fellas,
>>
>> I have the new dragger from Dragger.com and I don't like it.  Do you guys
like anything else for a 4P?
>>
>> Bob R.
>>
>>
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