After pinching pennies to build your gyro, there typically isn't much cash left for a fancy trailer. If this isn't your problem, you can go out and get a regular stateroom on wheels. For the rest of you, the challenge is to be able to hit the road with your new gyro without going further into debt!

Don and I faced the trailer problem in our second flying season (1991) when we wanted to bring our baby down to the PRA Convention in Brookville, Ohio. Since we would normally only be trailering the gyro once or twice a year, it didn't make much sense to drop a lot of money on the project!

The solution was a garden-variety 4 x 8 utility trailer of the type you see for sale almost everywhere. We purchased ours on the side of a country road for $200. What we liked about it was that it had nice big car tires and a real leaf-spring suspension. It also had wood slat siding on all four sides. While this may be great for hauling miscellaneous "stuff", it isn't ideal for a gyro. Besides, since the trailer bed is only four-feet wide, something was going to have to be done to accommodate the 7 feet main gear spread of the Gyrobee!

The solution was to remove the siding slats on the rear 1/3 of the trailer and then install a set of 2 x 4 "outriggers" at the rear of the trailer to support the main gear. You can see this in the picture above, but here it is in diagramatic form:

The pair of 2 x 4's are bolted to the trailer bed (each one in three places) with a small 2 x 4 cross-piece near the ends. The spacing of the two outriggers allows the main gear tires to "nest down" between the outriggers. The cross-pieces are bolted to the outriggers just inboard of each of the main wheels. The result is that the main gear cannot move forward or back or from side to side.

To make sure that the gear stays in place, each cross-piece has a pair of hook bolts. A pair of very heavy-duty black rubber bungees attach to the hooks while being stretched over the axles just inboard of the wheels. With the arrangement, the main gear is solidly locked into place.

The body of the gyro extends forward on the trailer bed and a pair of short 2x4 pieces are placed on either side of the nose wheel and bolted to the trailer bed with eye bolts. Either ropes or bungees can be used to lock the nose down into place between the 2x4 nose wheel blocks.

In the lead-off picture, the tail boom has been removed and stashed in the van. We no longer bother with this and simply wrap the rudder and attach red warning flags. The blades, each wrapped in scrap carpet, are bungeed down to the bed running under the main axles.

While it might seem simpler to remove all the panel slats, they are handy attachment points for ladders on the outside and gas cans on the inside. There is plenty of additional room for tents, lawn chairs and so on.

The lead picture shows the gyro wrapped in a tarp, but it is hard to do this in a way that you don't constantly have sections coming loose on the read and flapping in the breeze. The wide rolls of plastic wrap that may of the guys use is a far better way to protect the machine in transit.

So there it is! The trailer will never win a beauty contest but it is cheap (excuse me, frugal!), and does the job. If you need the trailer for other hauling during the rest of the year, the rear outriggers come off in just a few minutes.