OSH related (cutting boards for tires)

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4RNB

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4RNB
I am happy to move this to some master thread if it exists.

I've heard some people take something hard to put under their tires should the ground get soft. I met someone at my airport and saw three cutting boards for this, went ahead and ordered some. They seem awfully heavy and will limit my packing. Are these really needed? My common sense says nobody gets stranded so leave them at home.
 
It seems like everybody uses something; I figured there must be a reason, so I bought these in 2021 and have used them every year since: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B001D3JYXM?ref=fed_asin_title&th=1 $3.18/ea right now. My tie-down bag includes a hammer, 12-12" spikes, my tiedowns (homemade; angle iron with a lifting eye bolted on and 4 holes drilled through for the spikes), and those cutting boards. Fits in a "shaving bag", and weighs 11 pounds. How big of cutting boards did you get? My plane weighs ~2500 lbs empty but with fuel. Those little cutting boards do taco a bit, but the plane is always pretty easy to move. I think they're probably unnecessary if it's dry, but it seems like we get storms every year.
 
I have 3 steel discs, with lightening holes and stiffening flanges around the holes. They are 8 or 9" in diameter. You've gotta have decent placement and aim to get the wheels on 'em without a wheel or two right on the edge somewhere.
 
I use some 1/8” diamond plate 12” aluminum squares I bought from Home Depot. They replaced some homemade 1/2” scrap plywood squares that I used for a few years until one of the main gear ones cracked.

Are they absolutely necessary, no but after 11years I still use them. The past few years the ground in HBC/HBP has been pretty hard with not a bunch of rain prior to or during the show. However, when the ground is soft, after a week sitting there the plates make pulling the plane out a breeze. A few pounds of useful load is a small price to pay and we go up close to max gross in our RV-10 every year.
 
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"scrap" 1/4" aluminum treadplate. I know a guy.
 
My first time camping, I brought 3 squares of plywood. When I parked, I looked around and didn’t see anyone else using anything, so I left them in the plane. Thursday morning it took five or six guys to move the Bonanza out into the taxi lane.

(No humble brag about owning a Bonanza, it was borrowed. :) )
 
Dave Theisen said:
My first time camping, I brought 3 squares of plywood. When I parked, I looked around and didn’t see anyone else using anything, so I left them in the plane. Thursday morning it took five or six guys to move the Bonanza out into the taxi lane.

(No humble brag about owning a Bonanza, it was borrowed. :) )
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That's okay, nobody is really impressed by a bonanza anyway :stirpot:
 
Sheesh - all these fancy pants.
3 pack - $5 weighs about as much as cuppa coffee


But yeah - a plane sitting on soft grass for a week is going to sink in, especially after 3,4 storms to soften things up. And most people load their plane with all their stuff, and fuel, before pulling it out of the spot.
 
The only time I parked in the grass at OSH in my first Cirrus, I got completely stuck when trying to leave. With almost full power from the IO550 and full aft elevator, it wouldn’t budge. I didn’t dare go truly full throttle for a bunch of reasons. Had to shut down and round up a bunch of volunteers to help me move it out of the deep divots it created (tip: best way to do this is for a CIrrus is to have someone get on hands and knees under the wing root and push up with their back while two other volunteers push that wing backwards from the front, thus rocking that main gear wheel out of its divot, then repeat on the other side).

Since that year, I have paid the extra to park at Basler on hard surface (and more recently on HGI’s own hard surface ramp).
 
When I had the Skyhawk one wet years, I sank in so deep that it took two mashallers pushing on the strut and power to get it out of there. The Navion has bigger squishier tires, so I don't worry about it now.
 
RudyP said:
The only time I parked in the grass at OSH in my first Cirrus, I got completely stuck when trying to leave.
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I was on north fox and a cirrus required full power to get out of their tire marks after just 48 hours. Definitely a plane that it would be smart to get a set of cutting boards for.
 
Plastic downspout splash blocks from Home Depot work really, really well. Used them on my 6,000lb Twin Bonanza.
 
I’ve done the plywood boards for years. For last April’s Sun n Fun I bought these 3 metal plates at Home Depot for around $9 each I think? The next thicker ones were twice as much.

Worked great. Weighs nothing. Hope to re-use for years…

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