Buy a new 5th wheel, ripe project for a boat tail

[skyking]

Nice looking combo and you have it sitting nice and level. Decent rear clearance for those funky driveways and more fun camping spots too.

[aerostealth]

https://youtu.be/xSOXOEKAQJo

Found this video on You Tube. You should watch this as it shows the trucking industry vendors are getting serious about designing user friendly boat tails.

[aerostealth]

https://youtu.be/dm-Euo4yS6M

This second You Tube video is a animation of a inflatable boat tail for cargo trucks that Phil Knox has been talking about for years. This could work for cars, trucks, and trailers saving millions of gallons of fuel for highway driving over the whole nation.

[freebeard]

The first one looks like it follows the Mercedes-Benz IAC. Those semi-flexible panels don't meet convincingly along their edges.

With the second one, there is an internal structure that could go from the stack of doughnuts to a smooth taper; but they don't demonstrate that they understand what it would be.

I did appreciate the road rage scene at the end.

[aerohead]

If the EPA/NHTSA/DOT ever wake up from their Rip Van Winkle slumber,they may begin to smell efficiencies which lay beyond the current 5-foot maximum length restriction.

Perhaps we could 'start' with 5-ft,and offer the full Monty afterwards,when the government learns the definition of 'protection.'
So far they still prefer bodybags and flag-draped coffins.

[skyking]

sorry for the thread jack, but does that 5 foot limitation apply to me and my 5th wheel?

[aerohead]

Originally Posted by skyking

sorry for the thread jack, but does that 5 foot limitation apply to me and my 5th wheel?

Officially,the rule only applies to Class-8 Tractor-Trailers.
And since 18-wheelers can pull triple trailers in some states,they'd have to allow for full-boat-tail trailers so as not to be guilty of discrimination.

If length is length,then I suspect that you're home free!

[skyking]

For my purposes here in Washington, a trailer may not protrude more than 15' beyond the center of the rearmost axle,
RCW 46.44.034: Maximum lengths
Except as stated"

This subsection does not apply to "specialized equipment" designated under 49 U.S.C. Sec. 2311

Unfortunately, the specialized equipment section of the USC code does not apply to sub part D:

(d)Exclusion of Safety and Energy Conservation Devices.—
Length calculated under this section does not include a safety or energy conservation device the Secretary decides is necessary for safe and efficient operation of a commercial motor vehicle. However, such a device may not have by its design or use the ability to carry cargo.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/49/31111

I measured my trailer overhang at 8' to the ladder. Where I want to stow the panels when not in use limits me to 70" so I am good to go.

[aerohead]

That's great!
Trailer Tail has been aggressively marketing in The European Union and is actively petitioning the governing bodies of the E.U. to allow for longer boat tails,long-proven to save additional fuel.
Who knows,we might eventually catch up to 1865 technology!

70-inches should make a nice showing at the fuel pump.

[freebeard]

1905


http://www.shiawasseehistory.com/mckeen.html

Perhaps this is why I like Rumpler-style bodies so much. The Salem, Falls City and Western Railway ran a McKeen motorcar on a line a few miles from where I grew up, but decades earlier. Nobody explained to me that the Golden Age had already past.

Faster backwards, right?