It has occurred to me that with a relatively low flight time budget (say 100 hours, which is already quite a bit for VFR weekend flying), a large chunk of the effective hourly flying costs with an own aircraft lie in hangaring. In my area it is 1) hard to obtain a hangar space at all within 1 hour driving range (read: multi-year waiting lists), and 2) monthly parking costs for a small single are considerable (tie-down EUR 150-200, hangar EUR 300-400 and even upward to EUR 700).
On an hourly basis, parking costs equal or exceed the cost of fuel for small aircraft (tie-down: EUR 18-24, hangar: EUR 36-48). Sure there are other factors in fixed costs such as insurance, paperwork, and maintenance, but it seems to me that having a trailerable aircraft immediately cuts about a quarter of the annual flying costs (estimated EUR 10k for 100 hours).
Trailerable aircraft that can be quickly assembled are:
These are surely quite limited in their mission, the Europa probably being the only reasonable touring aircraft of the bunch. However, it seems they provide a lot of of flexibility for relatively little money. This might just be what some people are looking for that have / want to restrict their flying budget to car-like proportions.
What’s your experience / opinion about trailerable aircraft?
Add the Eurofox (which is becoming a popular glider tug in these parts). Comes with a covered trailer, and the tailwheel version can be folded and put in its trailer single handedly.
I rig the Europa XS Trigear ALONE in 40 Minutes ready to fly. It’s also a capable and fast going places aircraft.
http://www.airport-data.com/aircraft/PH-ZTI.html
europaxs wrote:
I rig the Europa XS Trigear ALONE in 40 Minutes ready to fly. It’s also a capable and fast going places aircraft.
Nice solution! Though spending 40 minutes before each flight seems quite a lot, especially for shorter hops. Can you do the same with the monowheel version (I’m wondering how it would stay upright without wings)? How much does such a trailer roughly cost?
alioth wrote:
Add the Eurofox (which is becoming a popular glider tug in these parts). Comes with a covered trailer, and the tailwheel version can be folded and put in its trailer single handedly.
The LSA version with 912 ULS seems a good contender against Kitfox and Avid Flyer. For its class, the Eurofox seems pretty sturdy, with a good payload and range. Expectedly not a speed daemon. Prepared for skis and floats (although two floats apparently weight 80 kg — there goes your passenger). I also like that the manufacturer doesn’t seem to embellish performance data of its plane (especially cruise performance).
The 40 minutes is single handed and includes all checks with oil. Our club aircrafts are stored in the hangar. Only one authorized person is allowed to move them. Sometimes they are in the second or third row, hangar rash……
You can do it with the Mono as well (it is held upright in a cradle). However you should keep in mind, that the Mono’s behavior on the ground is “special”. It is only about 8 knots faster than the TG.
My closed trailer costs about 15k EUR, hangarage at my homebase EDLE is about 330 EUR per months – just calculate….
The EuroFox is a derivative of the KitFox, hence the name, and shares a lot of its characteristics. My own Apollo Fox is a close cousin to it.
For myself I consider the 100 HP 912S as overkill for these planes (except perhaps for applications like glider tow, of which I know nothing).
If I were really in a hurry I could park my van at the airfield, open the hangar doors, roll out the plane, close the hangar doors, unfold the wings, prepare the plane, and take off, in 15 minutes. However I do not like to hurry – not in my job and even less outside. When going for a day’s flying I count 60-90 minutes rather than 15. A good deal of this goes into syphon fuelling, but that time is spent to good use in socialising, checking logbooks, filing the flightplan if required, consulting and printing NOTAMs and meteo, &c &c
Mind you, all this is about having the plane hangared, though with folded wings, not trailered. Here is an image of what she looks like, in rest, hangared.
Using a trailer will require more time, if only for driving onto and off the airfield. It also brings more physical effort, unfixing the plane from the trailer, installing the ramps then winching the plane down, then removing the ramps and remove trailer and its towing vehicle – and all of those to be repeated the other way around after the flight.
Be aware also that I have known some fields where trailer users were slightly looked down upon – to be in the front row, one had to fly a based plane, whether one’s own or from the club. That may have been a local phenomenon, though.
Fazit: if you must, you must, if not: avoid!
PS talking of the Europa and trailering it: there used to be a picture on the Europa website of such a plane, trailered, being fuelled at a roadside filling station; I always liked it but cannot find it anywhere. Not sure if it wasn’t at a diesel pump, too – one Mr. Wilksch must have been very keen on promoting his engine in that plane.
Jan_Olieslagers wrote:
Fazit: if you must, you must, if not: avoid!
I come to a totally different conclusion although it’s true, that it keeps you fit to upload the plane. Concerning refuelling is another advantage to trailer, because I pay 1,19€ at the car station :-)
Jan_Olieslagers wrote:Using a trailer will require more time, if only for driving onto and off the airfield
I’m actually faster, since I don’t have to walk to the hangar 
As you see – it depends……
Zorg wrote:
Any important ones I’m missing?
One field I know of has some type of Pipistrel as a regular trailered – or should I say a trailered regular – two seats side by side but I’m not sure of the exact name.
