Half Truck Pulls Plane

[robertryan]

That truck used to be four wheel drive😂

[michaelcoulter]

Id like to see the half truck in full view moving toword the plane

[wh]

My dad and I took a little 1952 beaver seaplane from Seattle up just off the coast of British Columbia. The little airport in seattle used those trucks. Being from Texas I had never seen such a thing and was fascinated.

[OTGBob]

I remember seeing one in Coeur d'Alene made out of the front of a '66 Toronado.

[austinh]

Holy hell. It’s weird seeing a truck you drive at work on a random short 😂 It’s northwest seaplanes at Renton, Wa.

[Rescue]

I still don't understand why it's half a truck?

[jakebrowne]

The coolest thing about that brown one is a little short bed box on it

[jamesbrooks]

grew up on an island where everyone has a floatplane and never seen anything like that

[johnmcmullen]

“The operation can be quite delicate, and needs very precise controls. . . Having the cab reversed gives the driver better visibility, having the steering wheel under the cab makes it much more maneuverable.”

[shanerRC]

I'm stunned by the people that think a whole truck would be better and can't see how this works.

[Doonkough]

😮 scoar the bottem of the ponttuns on THE Ramp .
S M A R T .

[sixpest]

*I wonder if you could pass inspection with that shit.*
That's the real question.

[matthewheinze]

How have I never seen one of these fine square bodies?!?!?!

[smoketinytom]

Saw one of these in Scotland, built out of Toyota Hilux… It was a strange beast for a 14 Y.O to see from the car park.

[kegwf]

So for those who don't understand why, this is a pickup cab welded onto the end of a long frame that supports the plane.
Basically picture extending the truck frame rails forward 30 feet, and putting wheels on the far end, and then cut the back end of the truck off.

There is no "trailer", there is no hitch, the cab is part of the transport vehicle.

At least in this design, there may be others that do it with a seperate hitch, but that doesn't make as much sense.

The benefits of this design is that it's very maneuverable, you have great visibility, and it's dirt cheap.

Anything involving any of the other suggestions I am seeing is incredibly more expensive, or not as accurate or easy to use.

This basically steers and maneuvers like a forklift, you are just sitting all the way at the back over the steer tires.

And because you used a four wheel drive pickup, the engine, transmission, brakes, steering, and drive train is already there, you don't have to do any custom fab work, just build a long frame and bolt some trailer hubs to the other end.

[garrettdepew]

It’s a shame that they’re doing it to that nice Chevy and GMC

[ronemtae]

We did something completely different. We had an old pick up truck headed double wheels to the back of it set up a winch and collected the winch onto the plane. At that point we will pull the plane out with the winch cable was 150 feet long and it was really useful for a lot of different things especially pulling a plane with a propeller might still be moving.

[davidhenderson]

i was off roading once with some friends and we broke the rear drive shaft. Well the owner started walking to get help while we stayed behind. Well after the left we started thinking the front half still works. So well tied up the rear have of the shaft and drove off on the front shaft only. You should have seen the look on his face when we drove up beside him. We did have to stop ever few miles to check and re-tie the back shaft as it spun in the make shift sling we made damaging it but we got it home.

[The_Mimewar]

Seemed goofy until I realized that the trucks wheels are powered and steer, the planes trailer wheels are the other 2 wheels. It’s almost like a forklift doing it this way

[PTRRanger]

Got to love the Site 6 ramp in Havasu. Never a dull moment for boat launches. It’s the Haulover Inlet of lakes lol.