How long should I make it?

[455 Bravo Uniform]

I am repurposing a riding lawn mower as a tug for a 182. I am custom building the tow bar. How long should it be, from the 182's nose gear lugs to the front bumper of the mower for the best maneuverability?

I will only be using it to push the plane backwards into the hangar (I pull the plane out by hand).

 

[James331]

Longer will be more of a pain, I'd say just long enough that you can get that power to like 130 degrees without hitting the prop

 

[Mtns2Skies]

As a former ramp rat, the longer the tow-bar the more stable and less maneuverable it will be. If you go too short - be very wary of the turn limits on the nose wheel. It's pretty pricey if you exceed the tow limits and bend/break something. Many tow bars have variable lengths too.

Maybe @overdrive148 can weigh in as another former ramper.

 

[overdrive148]

As a former ramp rat, the longer the tow-bar the more stable and less maneuverable it will be. If you go too short - be very wary of the turn limits on the nose wheel. It's pretty pricey if you exceed the tow limits and bend/break something. Many tow bars have variable lengths too.

Maybe @overdrive148 can weigh in as another former ramper.

Exactly! Too short and you'll have too much trouble staying exactly on the towbar while pushing, too long and you will need wide exaggerated movements in just the right places. I'd say it depends on the amount of space in front of your hangar that you can use to maneuver.

By hand, 45 inches is the smallest I used - by tug, 92 inches (universal towbar exactly like this). I'd say somewhere in between, but closer to the long side (75in?). That way you don't over control and break the nose gear, with the added benefit of being able to cut off the end and shorten it since you're fabricating it yourself.

A magic distance you may want to measure is the longest that can fit into the hangar with the aircraft inside and towbar attached.

//edit

I had very few problems using the 92 inch universal towbar for putting away basically any aircraft under 14,000lb at either line tech job I had. The main difficulties were smaller areas to line up and turn in front of the hangar and wider wingspan aircraft going into barely wide enough hangars. Precision is something that takes time of course.

The smallest was a 40ft wide asphalt apron from the hangar door to the grass. Pretty uncomfortable!

 

[Clark1961]

It should be long enough to reach past all external layers and wide enough to satisfactorily perform.

 

[saddletramp]

I had a hangar that had a terrible slope to the entrance. I used a riding mower to move my 182 in & out. The biggest issue I had was keeping the tow bar from coming off of the front lugs. I was just using the original Cessna tow bar. I did two things that helped. First, I put a c-clamp on the tow bar so it would stay snug & then I tied a rope between the mower & the airplane in case they came unhooked the airplane wouldn't roll away.

Now I have a flat entrance to my new hangar & I can roll the Skylane in & out without a tug.

I'd suggest a tow bar at least 5' long with a strong clamp to the nose wheel.

 

[ktup-flyer]

As a former ramp rat, get/make an adjustable one. Makes all the difference in the world

 

[denverpilot]

If you’ll be sitting on the mechanized device, I’d highly recommend one of the tow bars like the bigger real tugs use, that clamp on to the lugs with a screw jack, and not just some spring loaded thing.

The spring loaded tow bars always pop off, and often at inopportune times. Even the tight one on our motorized one wheel tug. You really want to be somewhere you can grab a handful of prop hub and control the aircraft if need be when using something spring loaded.