Containerizing Planes for Shipment to the U.K.

Here's our bird, N6263, in a hangar at Albert Whitted Airport in St. Petersburg, FL getting ready to be 'dismembered' for shipment to the UK.  It was a time-consuming process to make sure all parts being removed were properly labeled, sorted, and bound up for travel.

 Keith Kossuth, the pilot for Team Barnstormers --which includes our son Colin-- and owner of the second of three Travel Airs from North America going on this adventure, is a certified aircraft mechanic and inspector and took charge of the process of getting his aircraft "Magic" (red and yellow) and our "Smuggler" (blue and silver) ready for a trip at sea.

Wings and tail feathers had to come off with the help of a forklift and lots of padding.  Getting the fuselage into the container was a very slow process requiring patient baby steps to insure our plane got properly settled into her "cradle" for the drive to Savannah, Georgia and then the trip across the Atlantic.

It was a tight squeeze into the container, and there were plenty of  people to all talk at once on just how to do it!

 

 Each aircraft was loaded like this into its own container.  The containers were delivered to Savannah, Georgia where they were put on a cargo ship bound for Southampton, England. It was a little unsettling to watch these "birds" of ours disappear in containers and on to the Interstate for a long journey to a distant continent.  So the adventure truly began.