Greetings from Western NY State

[broughtonkicks]

Good afternoon Badlanders!
I have been lurking here behind the scenes reading many of the posts for about a week! I will be picking up my F3 Speed RTF (with Polini Thor 250 DS engine) next month in Truman, MN. I am so stoked about it that it has been harder and harder to sleep at night!
I stumbled across this forum last week and have already found it quite useful.
I may have put the cart in front of the horse but I still have not located hangar space (which is nil here), nor do I have an enclosed trailer for it yet... until that happens the F3 will be stored my the garage. I have reserved a 26' Budget Rental Truck in Minneapolis and will drive it down to Chris's before heading back east.
If anyone has creative hanger or enclosed custom trailer build ideas I'd love to hear them. I may ask the same question(s) on the other forum threads if this intro is not seen (or answered) by many.
I appreciate the feedback that I've already received here. Once there are more "Badlanders" flying out there, it would be awesome to have a fly-in some day! ...just a thought!

~Barry

[ksatter26]

I flew into Minneapolis and rented a one-way Budget box truck for my drive from Truman to the Dallas area. You can step down to a 20' or 22' truck with ease. Nice folks at the Minneapolis Budget Office near the airport. The box in the foreground is my Polini 303. Bring a few rachet straps, several bungee cords, and/or a coil of parachute cord. As you can see the truck has framing on the inside so there's plenty of tie-down locations. I also had about 8-10 furniture pads and rode back to Dallas with the beautiful fiberglass bubble cowling strapped to the passenger seat. (I should have taken a picture of that.)

Good luck ... See my Build Log (Ksatter26) for my F3 adventure ... Picked up my kit in Early Sept. 2023 and hope to be flying by this September.

[Mountain Cat]

Will be interesting to see how the Polini 303 does. I just got mine installed and wired up ready to test run. Need to do a W&B first but the weather has me behind.

[ksatter26]

I finished (in a 2-car garage) a MiniMAX 1103R shortly after moving to North Texas. Closest hangar space was almost an hour away and I had to share with 12 other aircraft. Since the 1103 was so small and low wing, I got tucked in the rear of the huge hangar. After an hour drive I (by myself) would have to move at least 3-4 aircraft to get the beast out to do taxi testing and finally flight. Afterwards I'd tuck the beast between and under the wings of two high-wingers and make the hour drive back home. Sure enough the next trip out I'd be stuck in the back of the hangar again.

I was paying almost $200/month for this "convenience." Sold the beast with only about 8 hours on it and started a folding wing project, then started looking for a suitable place to build house/shop/hangar ... THAT took almost 3 years.

I'd been on at least 5 hangar space waiting lists ... each told me wait times were normally over 2-3 years.

If hit the lottery, I'll build hangars at local airports.

Good luck.

[LA F2 Flyer]

Hi Barry, and welcome to the forum! Glad to have you here. I am actually in the same boat and am storing my Badland in my garage. Being in Los Angeles, I don't have too many other options that make sense for me and my situation. But it works for now. I had considered an enclosed trailer, but then I would need space to store THAT, so I'd be back to square one, essentially.



I like the idea of a "fly" in somewhere. Let's do what we can to make this happen!

[broughtonkicks]

I flew into Minneapolis and rented a one-way Budget box truck for my drive from Truman to the Dallas area. You can step down to a 20' or 22' truck with ease. Nice folks at the Minneapolis Budget Office near the airport. The box in the foreground is my Polini 303. Bring a few rachet straps, several bungee cords, and/or a coil of parachute cord. As you can see the truck has framing on the inside so there's plenty of tie-down locations. I also had about 8-10 furniture pads and rode back to Dallas with the beautiful fiberglass bubble cowling strapped to the passenger seat. (I should have taken a picture of that.)

Good luck ... See my Build Log (Ksatter26) for my F3 adventure ... Picked up my kit in Early Sept. 2023 and hope to be flying by this September.


BudgetBoxTruck02.JPG

Thanks ksatter26. I thought that 26 ft was going to be overkill, but they didn't have the 20 ft or 22 ft options available when I reserved it for next month. I'll call them in a week or two and see if it looks as thought they will have a smaller one available when the time comes. Thanks for the suggestion on tie downs. Mine F3 is a "ready to fly" so it'll pack a bit differently than yours did...but still lots of tie down options. good luck with the rest of your build! I hope that you hit your deadline!

~Barry

[broughtonkicks]

I finished (in a 2-car garage) a MiniMAX 1103R shortly after moving to North Texas. Closest hangar space was almost an hour away and I had to share with 12 other aircraft. Since the 1103 was so small and low wing, I got tucked in the rear of the huge hangar. After an hour drive I (by myself) would have to move at least 3-4 aircraft to get the beast out to do taxi testing and finally flight. Afterwards I'd tuck the beast between and under the wings of two high-wingers and make the hour drive back home. Sure enough the next trip out I'd be stuck in the back of the hangar again.

I was paying almost $200/month for this "convenience." Sold the beast with only about 8 hours on it and started a folding wing project, then started looking for a suitable place to build house/shop/hangar ... THAT took almost 3 years.

I'd been on at least 5 hangar space waiting lists ... each told me wait times were normally over 2-3 years.

If hit the lottery, I'll build hangars at local airports.

Good luck.

Yep...seems like a problem everywhere. If I can get something soon at a small grass strip airport near me, I am considering buying a few acres of land and put up my own hangar.

[broughtonkicks]

Hi Barry, and welcome to the forum! Glad to have you here. I am actually in the same boat and am storing my Badland in my garage. Being in Los Angeles, I don't have too many other options that make sense for me and my situation. But it works for now. I had considered an enclosed trailer, but then I would need space to store THAT, so I'd be back to square one, essentially.



I like the idea of a "fly" in somewhere. Let's do what we can to make this happen!

Thanks for the Welcome! Seems like the same problem everywhere. If I can get some hangar space soon at a small grass strip airport near me, I am considering buying a few acres and put my own hangar on it.

I love the two "rides" that you have parked in your garage!

[ksatter26]

Sounds like mid-fall fun ... We have CA, NY MN and TX ... North Texas sounds about right .... :;)

[LA F2 Flyer]

"I love the two "rides" that you have parked in your garage!"

Thanks! I was actually considering taking them to a local field just for a photo shoot. The little Healey actually makes the Badland look "normal sized". haha