Landing platform/dolly
 

I'm wondering if anyone has advice on building a movable landing pad to assist in sliding the helicopter in and out of the hangar.

It's all in pre-planning stage, I don't have anything yet. I'm procuring a 280FX in a month or two, and hangar construction starts next week.

The hangar is a steel framed and skinned style, being built in my residential curtilege under permitted development rules. It's on sloping land, so will comply with the 2.5m eaves height restriction at the highest point of adjoining land, but will be excavated in a bit to give the necessary 3m clearance at the door.

This realistically gives me a maximum of 200mm height for a platform unless I dig deeper! Many platforms I have seen on a quick google are more than that, but I have personally seen one that was a lot lower.

It could run on wheels or rails. Could be powered by human, motor, pulley, whatever.

I'm really interested to hear any advice or experiences people have had.

Helicopter tug Helimo - perfect for all skidded helicopter ? Mototok

Save yourself unnecessary building/ hassle? Not cheap but brilliant. Not sure if there is a second hand market for them, sorry.

That looks like it's going to cost as much as the helicopter ;)

Almost def. But it's cool... :cool:

Tony at aero maintenance pontefract has a few sat round the back, very low deck on wheels, he may sell for a few gold coins ......

one of my old customers has one that is about 6 inches high, doesn't use it any more since writing his machine off !

One we made earlier

http://www.pprune.org/members/90866-...e422695c51.jpg

Not difficult to fabricate
PM me

Phugoid.... No image!

How are these platforms discussed so far powered?

Powered? Usually just a loop hitch at one end. Hook on and pull/push with whatever you want. I've seen atv's, lawn-mower tractors, farm tractors, tugs, pickup trucks....
Now I've also seen the back of a flat deck truck used for a mobile pad. After landing the owner just drove the truck with helicopter into his shop.

There is this post in an old thread which gives some good advice about trolleys generally, but your specific about a limit of 20cm is quite restrictive for the construction. I would guess that would be best resolved by using rails and solid steel wheels, since rubber-shod wheels with swivels capable of supporting the max weight of the trolley and machine are likely to be taller than 20cm to start with.

I had rubber matting on the skid lines for all my trolleys (three of them) and at least 2-3ft extra width on both sides to give a solid reference when landing. Nothing worse than hovering without a proper reference to where you're landing.

Along with the rubber matting were a series of metals straps across the rubber to ensure an earth from the helicopter to the trolley, and an earthing chain from the trolley to the ground. Nothing wrong with putting some tape onto the rubber to give alignment marks to get your helicopter in the right spot on each landing, too :ok: Fore and aft for the skids, and one lateral to line up (maybe) the toe of the skid or the crosstube. Then you know where the helicopter will be when the trolley goes into the hangar and can position hangar support gear accordingly, knowing it will be clear of the blades, etc.

Invest in a good tug to push in and out: third hand ride-on mowers may be cheap but will they perform when it comes to stopping in a hurry?

Mototok very recently appointed a UK distributor in case anyone's interested

A surprising number of helicopters destroyed and/or pilots killed attempting to land on a dolly. Why take the risk? There are several tugs available that raise the helo off the ground to move it into the hangar. I use an AviGround Systems remote controlled tug with my E480B. Works very well. On the expensive side but far cheaper than a new helo!

I don't seem to be able to get my head round photo posting! :ugh: The picture is on my album if you can access that. Cheers

Plue, you need to upload the image to a site such as photobucket and post a link to it in that location.

West Yorkshire Police used to have a Land Rover attached to a wheeled frame. It was connected to the front of the Landy, and I never saw it disconnected. Routine procedure was to reverse the Landy out of the big shed, onto the concrete. Apply the handbrake and go flying.

The landing, with blades going over the cab of the landy, struck me as looking for trouble when I first saw it done. In practice it worked a treat.

It did make the end of day / foul wx chores real easy. Just drive into the shed, pushing the whole thing away.

That's a pretty nice solution.

I've made up my mind with how i'm going to approach it - thanks in part to the information here.

I'm going to lay "train tracks" out of the hangar onto the concrete pad. I'm then going to construct a pad approx 12 feet square out of rectangle section mild steel. On the bottom will be 100mm pulley wheels to run on the rails. The top will be skinned in thin steel sheet and rubber flooring (plus aluminium grounding strips). The whole thing will be about 125mm high, reducing risk if one skid slips off.

I'll use an electric winch to pull the pad in and out of the hangar.

This is more or less the same as a system I used during some training at a private site in Brighton.

The benefit of tracks is repeatable accuracy and much lower chance of whacking a blade against the side of the hangar. If the machine isn't landed centrally, the 3 blades can be rotated to compensate.

This gives me a nice excuse to finally buy an Arc Welder and learn how to weld :)

If you fit a ring in the concrete in front of the doors, a good bit in front, you can use the same (rear wall mounted) winch to pull it both in and out.

I'm sure I've landed that Gazelle on that trolley a few times. There were two
Dark blue ones in Scotland I flew off similar trollies. The one in the image had an ifr panel which obscured the view a bit.
I also used to fly an R44 out of an exposed site that had a trolley and sometimes on return if the wind was strong from an unfavourable direction I had to land on the grass. Shut down to reposition the trolley then start up and put the aircraft on the trolley. So watch out with fixed tracks that you don't get stuffed by a bad wind and try to land out of limits for you and or the helicopter. Must admit I never liked the trollies.
R

Where do you find a winch that can take 50m cable and also be variable speed ?
I have found some but they are on a drum that is so small they winch in very slowly ...