TRAILER & DELIVERY

PICKUP

After a relatively uneventful drive, we arrived in Ear Falls to do the final monetary exchange and pick up the kit. I had chosen to purchase the trailer for several reasons; primarily the expectation of returning to Ear Falls for the final rigging and hover testing, the need to transport the kit, and for a perceived need to move the helicopter around after completion. Before leaving on the five-day round trip, I had repeatedly confirmed that everything was ready and the trailer would be ready to go upon arrival. In response, I was told that the trailer was ready, loaded and I only needed to hitch up and go; the only thing needed was my arrival and the final payment exchange.

Needless to say, I was somewhat taken aback when I arrived onsite in the morning and realized the trailer was not ready to hitch up and go. After noting the large crates already loaded, the next thing I noticed was that it sat considerably lower than other trailers I had seen. Inspection and discussion revealed that CHR had wanted to test lowering the trailer bed and installed the axles on top of the springs rather than the conventional bottom of the springs. This resulted in only about 1" clearance between the top of the tires and the decking; remember that this is a double axle trailer with a pivoting center bogey. In my opinion this was totally UNSAFE and I refused to tow it. Luckily a crew was on-site and they went through the laborious task of unloading the crates, flipping the axles and reloading the crates.

Next came a good look at the crates and their stability. Oops ... no hold-downs, ratchet straps etc. or even any provision for them. Off to the local auto supply for ratchet straps, torch a few holes in the frame, and we're finally secure. After this it was time to load three large crates (tail rotor, transmission and rotor head) along with miscellaneous items into the back of the Jeep; luckily it all fit.

A look for the safety chains that I had previously confirmed via phone revealed they weren't there and not even a provision for mounting them. Back to the auto store for chains and out with the torch again. Finally it's time to hitch up and connect/test the lights. I had been told that CHR used 4 pin light connectors so I installed the 7-4 pin adapter that I had bought. Wait a minute ... there's no connector on the trailer! Luckily I had also brought a 7-pin trailer-side cable that we finally got correctly oriented, soldered, wrapped etc. Too bad that at the time I didn't realize that all these things were indicative of a company attitude and signs of things to come ...

After installing a missing bulb and testing the lamps, by mid-afternoon it was finally time to get on the road.

ARRIVAL at DESTINATION

Because of the late start, we actually spent two nights at motels on the way back instead of the one expected. The one positive aspect of this is that we arrived back about mid-day and managed to get the boxes and the long crate unloaded and stowed inside before nightfall.

(Yes, the street is sloped and the driveway is steep!)

MISCELLANEOUS

One interesting thing I noticed about the wiring was an extra 4-pin connector at the back of the trailer. As a result of questioning this, the purpose of this connector is to allow for removable extra lights to be added onto the end of the tail boom and connected to the trailer electrics when towing. I haven't followed up further, but one thought I had was to add a connector to the rear position light on the boom such that it connects to the ship's wiring for flight or to the trailer's running lights for towing.

After the unloading, I took the opportunity to carefully inspect and do some maintenance work on the trailer before I moved it to a friend's place for storage. This was a real eye opener:

• The bolts and nuts holding the ball receiver onto the tongue were installed barely finger tight! I have absolutely no idea how they stayed in place over the 1,000 mile trip and dread even contemplating what would have happened if they'd come undone. The nuts were changed to stainless nylon insert type and properly torqued.
• Three out of the four wheels were installed backwards; i.e. the fill stem was on the inside making a very shallow grip length to get a socket on the nuts. Needless to say, they were reversed to the correct orientation.
• One nut out of four on the tongue wheel/jack was non-stainless and already rusting ... changed.
• One of the welded nuts for the skid hold-down bar has weld-filler in the thread - I now have the proper tap to try run through it.
• Several of the welded brackets had never had any rustproofing or paint applied.
• The spare tires were not pre-mounted. Two more brackets for me to fabricate & bolt down.

I have a serious concern about the stowage position and hold down of the ramps. If one of the bolts ever came loose on the highway, it would cause the front end of the ramp to drop and/or catch and potentially even cause the whole trailer to flip. I will definitely be looking into moving these ramps to be at the rear behind the axles. Better to have them drop off and lose one than flip and/or break the running gear.

OVERALL OPINION

Myself and another builder both feel that while the trailer is extremely functional, it was built for speedy construction in a cost-conscious manner. I know mine is showing a lot of aging just from being left outdoors ... rust, warped decking etc. If the trailer is to be left outside then the owner should plan on doing some maintenance. The other builder has already stripped his trailer down and essentially re-built it. It would have made it much easier if the factory had taken the time to apply a quality paint job (including a primer) to both the metal and wood in addition to using pressure treated decking. The loading ramps are Mickey Mouse boards and one should seriously consider replacing them with proper ramps that include side-rails. Loading a helicopter onto it is definitely not a one-person job unless one spends the time and money to design and install a winch system based on something such as an ATV winch.

While some may doubt the need to get a specialized trailer, I would disagree. One thing that really impressed me on the trip back was how well the trailer tracked and how smoothly it rode even over bumps and railway crossings. I have heard horror stories of how people with other helicopter and trailer combinations have broken tail booms, rotor heads, had to dismount the blades for travel etc. etc. CHR and a few of their owners routinely haul fully assembled Safaris on these trailers over long distance and so far I have not heard of any issues. I believe it is very important that the trailer, springing etc. be a matched combination to the individual craft in order to have a safe and reliable means to tow it.

I used a Jeep with a 318 (5.2L) V8 to haul the trailer with the crates on it and this was marginal for the route I took; I definitely wouldn't recommend this combination through the mountains around here. I don't know if this is a result of wind drag from the square ended crates or whether I was just pushing the limits. Gas mileage was horrendous (about double the unloaded trip to pick it up) and I am waiting to see how it will tow with a completed ship on it.

My one very strong recommendation to anyone purchasing this trailer would be to do a very thorough inspection of all components before even considering hitching it up.

I've had the opportunity to see a newer CHR trailer and there are several differences. The most noteworthy is the change to the sides where they used rectangular steel to both add extra support for the frame and to act as a slight lip. Mine used 2x3 lumber above the deck which quickly warped and adds very little structural support.

ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS

There is a potential additional advantage to having a trailer. Once the construction is complete and the owner moves into the final testing and rigging stages there will be times when they want to test various things with the engine running but no possibility of flight. By having the craft SECURELY attached to the trailer, this allows the blades to be attached and turning but without hover/flight capability. At this time I don't know if this is a viable scenario for doing the initial blade tracking and balancing; also I still have to check the weight of CHR's trailer to make absolutely sure that there is no possibility of flight. The other apsect of this is that it allows various testing to be done without any question of legality if either the craft does not have it's new CofA or the person in control does not have a valid helicopter pilot licence.

Until my ship is completed, the trailer has found a variety of uses. Since its located at an airport and is available to my hangar mates, its been used for hauling a nearly completed GlaStar on a 200 mile journey, moving a full-size simulator plus various day-to-day tasks such as transporting building supplies, office furniture etc.

HINDSIGHT

The trailer has now been used to transport the helicopter on a roughly 600 mile round trip which has revealed a couple of interesting facts. The first one is that the supplied loading ramps really are Mickey Mouse per my original opinion. One of the ramps broke before we even got the machine loaded ... turns out there was a knot in the board and it cracked when the helicopter was about 1/3 of the way up the ramp! Luckily there was a raised area at my destination where I could back the trailer up to and move the machine off without having to use the CHR-supplied ramps. While I might use another replacement board as a quick and dirty if I need the ramps immediately, the boards are no substitute for real ramps.

Another thing the supplied ramps showed is how hard it is to load the machine by hand up the incline ... we had the trailer tongue on the ground and front loaded the machine. Luckily there were six people available when we loaded it ... there's no way that two normal people would be able to push / pull the machine up that incline. Without a winch, one needs to make sure that there are plenty of bodies available for the loading and unloading.

With the trailer loaded, I found it was much easier to pull with a completed helicopter versus the crates that I got the kit in. I used a Ford Escape with a V6 and I had doubts about whether it would have enough pulling power on the highway. About the only problem I had was getting from the airport to the main highway. That's about fifteen miles of paved but very hilly terrain with several steep hills on it. I had trouble getting more than about 50 mph on the steep uphills. Once on the main highway (4 lane divided) everything was fine and it towed comfortably at about 60+ mph.

The front blade support has a narrow rock guard at the bottom. Since there were plenty of bugs on the highway, this allowed me to see how much the vehicle blocked them and how many of them got by and splattered on the bubble. The same would be true for rocks. The short story is that the bubble was covered with bugs and took a lot of cleanup. I've seen pictures of Safari trailers with a lot of extra material on the front to protect the bubble. If one is planning to do a lot of trailering then some kind of protection would certainly be adviseable. Perhaps just something like door screen or extra plywood on the front brace would help.

The biggest revelation was in how the trailering affected the main blade adjustments. Before trailering, the main rotor was at 0.14 ips and both blades were within 1/16" on lead/lag ... after getting to the destination the vibration was ~ 1.2 ips and one blade was leaded about 3/8" !!! I really don't know if this was only due to trailering but there had been no head adjustments between these measurements; there had been about 1+ hours of hovering at the original site after the initial readings. I've now heard of another case where there was a significant change to the rigging after trailering. I'd been led to believe that it was perfectly okay to trailer the Safari on CHR's trailer with the blades attached. After this experience, I'm inclined to dispute those claims.

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Last updated: September 18, 2009