RV-7A meet Toyota Prius

One of today's tasks was transporting the horizontal stabilizer for the airplane that's under construction, a Van's RV-7A, to the new house. The horizontal stabilizer is the horizontal part of the tail. On an RV-7A, both sides of the tail form a single unit. A rather long single unit. And like most airplane parts, it's extremely strong, but only in the ways that it needs to be strong, which means I really wanted to move it myself rather than letting guys who are used to moving furniture do it.

Now, the last time we moved this thing, we put down the top on the convertible and tied the stabilizer across the seats, with one end on the dashboard and the other hanging over the back of the car. That worked OK for moving it less than a mile late enough at night so there'd be no traffic, but it wasn't going to cut it for moving the thing twenty miles at highway speeds.

After puzzling over it for a bit, I decided to try it in the Prius. Amazingly enough, it just fit:




With room to close the hatch, even! With the front seat reclined, and the back seat dropped, one tip of the stabilzer's about an inch from the dash, and the other comes right up against the tailgate. Mission accomplished!