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And one of my first questions 165+ post ago was if it would be safe to walk on the roof and how many could I hold?

We own tanks! Thanks Dave for making us all feel alot safer going down the road!

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http://www.truckroadservice.com/

These are great shots! Maybe the previous owner of my 94 Regency would have thought twice before modifying the roof if he had seen these pictures.

I know of one Regency that has a Bluebird-style luggage rack on a diamond plate roof.

Barth literature has referred to aircraft type aluminum construction. Would any of our aircraft people be willing to comment on Barth vs. aircraft construcion?

Bill, I work for an outfit with 3 Sikorsky S61s and 4 Bells, when I had my Barth at work, the structures guy who owns an old winnabago was pretty jealous of the way the Barths are built. We wondered about the solid bucked rivets used to hold the siding on. They would've needed to get a bucking bar on the back side of some pretty tight spots. Only later on this site did I find photos of the layout tables used to create the subassemblies for the unibody. The blind fasteners are the pricey, cherrymax rivets common in aircraft. Like Bill says, they are built like tanks, and as far as I'm concerned it will last me the rest of my life, so at 30, hopefully thats a good 50 years or so, probably won't be much left of the old Dodge underneath it by then though....

quote:

Originally posted by Bill & Sonja:
Barth literature has referred to aircraft type aluminum construction. Would any of our aircraft people be willing to comment on Barth vs. aircraft construcion?

I spent my entire working life in the belly of airplanes. And owned a few little bitty ones. The Barth is not the equal of aircraft construction. No way. The Barth is built like a stick house, with aluminum channels instead of 2X4s and aluminum skin instead of wooden siding and roof. Aircraft almost all use a monocoque construction, where the (curved) skin provides almost all of the structeral integrity. The ribs and formers are just there to keep the skin shaped correctly. I can think of a few exceptions, like the Bellanca or Aztec/Apache, but they are way old. And, of course, some older airplanes had a steel fuselage frame with cloth stretched over. A Barth is like an airplane in that the aluminum skin is riveted to the alluminum structure. From what little I have seen of the inside of mine, it doesn't look too difficult to buck the rivets. In some areas, such as storage doors, Barth has superior construction. I would say that an Airstream, and perhaps a Silver Streak and Avion are closer to aircraft construction than a Barth. The current Trailer Life has an interesting Airstream article.

Having said all that, Barths are better built than most other MHs. It would seem to be the equal of most other all-metal coaches. One by one, I ruled the others out (for reasons other than quality) until I decided on a Barth.

quote:

Originally posted by bill h:
The Barth is not the equal of aircraft construction. A Barth is like an airplane in that the aluminum skin is riveted to the alluminum structure.

Barthism: A Barth is a lot closer to airplane construction then most SOB's construction compared to a Barth.

Man... that was deep.

Bill N.Y.

What we have here is a conflict between a bit of advertising hype, & absolute technical accuracy, relating to different periods in time.

Bill N.Y. says, "A Barth is a lot closer to airplane construction than most SOB's construction compared to a Barth."

That's true. Today, however the amount of plastic composites in commercial aircraft suggests they might be properly compared to modern RV's which are also largely composites. The difference is in the relative quality.

I'll go out on a limb & suggest that Barths are the RV equivalent of the DC=3. That old bird has been around for 70 years, the Barth 40. Somewhere around 10% of DC-3 production is still flying somewhere in the world, though the last ones were built in the U.S. 60 years ago, or so. DC-3's are more dependent on the strength of structural members, as opposed to stressed skin, than later aircraft designs.

A major difference between RV's & aircraft is that almost all RV's are houses mounted on external frames that provide the foundation. Aircraft must be all of one piece.

Barth's were built by riveting an aluminum skin to aluminum structural members, just as early aluminum aircraft were. To that extent, the advertising is correct. Also, if there are any RV's likely to live as long as DC-3's, Barth will be among the few that include perhaps Silver Streaks, earlier Airstreams, and Streamlines.

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The ribs and formers are just there to keep the skin shaped correctly. I can think of a few exceptions, like the Bellanca or Aztec/Apache

Bill, you're right-on about the Bellanca, a classic wood-wing, tube & fabric fuselage design going back 60+ years, and still considered an airborne Ferrari today. Out of production mainly because it's become almost impossible to find the aircraft-quality Sitka Spruce needed for the wing spar and the dwindling supply for aircraft artisans necessary to build it. Even today, it has one of the best hp/weight/mph ratios going......30 year old pristine Viking 300's can still command six figures to the right person......

On the other hand, Piper Apaches & Aztecs were of the standard, run of the mill, Spam-Can design....All aluminum semi-monocoque, with skin loads transferred via rivets to bulkheads, stringers, stiffeners, etc. (i.e.: Barth-type construction)

I think we'd agree that "aircraft-type" construction is more of a marketing term than an engineering one, and there's a wide chasm between aircraft-type construction and aircraft-quality construction. Having said that, Barth was certainly eons ahead of their competition in constructing a rugged & long-life coach body.

I've always thought the 34 year Airstream sitting in my driveway looked like a wingless Dc-3 right down to the curved door.

quote:

Originally posted by Lee:

quote:

The ribs and formers are just there to keep the skin shaped correctly. I can think of a few exceptions, like the Bellanca or Aztec/Apache

Bill, you're right-on about the Bellanca, a classic wood-wing, tube & fabric fuselage design going back 60+ years, and still considered an airborne Ferrari today. Out of production mainly because it's become almost impossible to find the aircraft-quality Sitka Spruce needed for the wing spar and the dwindling supply for aircraft artisans necessary to build it. Even today, it has one of the best hp/weight/mph ratios going......30 year old pristine Viking 300's can still command six figures to the right person......

On the other hand, Piper Apaches & Aztecs were of the standard, run of the mill, Spam-Can design....All aluminum semi-monocoque, with skin loads transferred via rivets to bulkheads, stringers, stiffeners, etc. (i.e.: Barth-type construction)

I think we'd agree that "aircraft-type" construction is more of a marketing term than an engineering one, and there's a wide chasm between aircraft-type construction and aircraft-quality construction. Having said that, Barth was certainly eons ahead of their competition in constructing a rugged & long-life coach body.

Lee, I share your appreciation of the Bellanca. I would have owned one, but I am just too tall to sit in one, or at least the models I could afford. But I never felt better aileron response than a Bellanca.

Now, as to the Aztec/Apache..... It was a Stinson design purchased by Piper in the forties, and would have been the Twin Stinson. Piper re-engineered it from from a steel tube rag airplane to an aluminum-skinned plane and dropped the original twin tails for the Piper/Taylor single tail. But it retained the steel tube fuselage construction. I remember that the aluminum in the fuselage was chromated, but the steel wasn't protected against corrosion very well. Just black paint, I think. Sometimes we would find rust under the floorboards. Perhaps the worse airplane I ever flew, but it was an affordable multi engine rating. The Aztec, particularly the C was a much better plane, but retained the steel tube fuselage frame. We put lots of Rajay turbochargers on Cs in the sixties, and they became really good high altitude planes. They had an airfoil (Clark Y?)that worked really well way high up.

quote:

Originally posted by olroy:
I'll go out on a limb & suggest that Barths are the RV equivalent of the DC=3. That old bird has been around for 70 years, the Barth 40. Somewhere around 10% of DC-3 production is still flying somewhere in the world, though the last ones were built in the U.S. 60 years ago, or so. DC-3's are more dependent on the strength of structural members, as opposed to stressed skin, than later aircraft designs.

Depending on the source, the DC3 is described as either monocoque or semi-monocoque construction. I believe semi-monocoque is more correct, but it matters little. Either way, they are both stressed-skin design, with only formers and stringers, no real structure to speak of fuselage-wise.

If I were going to compare Barth construction to an airplane, perhaps it would be a Ford, Stout, Fokker or Junkers tri-moter. They all came from Hugo Junkers 1918 patent which was originally corrugated steel skin riveted to tubular framework. Aluminum skin soon followed. It is not much of a stretch to look at a Barth with corrugated aluminum riveted to aluminum channel, is it?

I think the Gooney Bird survives as much due its superior design as its construction. Certainly, it is well made, but so are many other airplanes of that era. The Lockheed Lodestar, for example. But the GB just carries so much so well into such short fields that nothing else comes close. I remember shaping them up to go to Vietnam in the sixties. We got them from different Air National Guard units to return them to active Air Force service. The governor of Georgia had MacArthur's old plane, for example. Pretty posh. And the Pratts ran and ran and ran. They were tanks.

I have had the pleasure of riding in two Ford Trimotors and one Junkers 52 Trimotor. They are much noisier than a Barth.

But, Barths will never be retired due to any inadequacies of their materials or construction. No wood rot, no delamination, no staples loosening, etc. Nor will a Barth ever be retired for any deficiencies in its design. Nor will a Barth ever be retired because of body maintenance or cabinetry durability problems. It will be damage, neglect and chassis maintenance that will do them in.

Well, IMHO, the fact a Barth isn't monocoque or semi-monocoque is immaterial. The stresses are not the same as an aircraft, because most in a Barth are absorbed by the steel chassis, which is the primary load-bearing member. The formers and stringers need only carry stresses on the house, and they're (in a Barth) more akin to aircraft than SOBs.

The Barth design and construction wouldn't work all that well in an aircraft, but Barths don't fly.

Even my F35 Bonanza was semi-monocoque - certificated at 4.4 G and 3.3 -G in the utility catergory...unless one does Barth-o-batics in a Barth, the stresses will never approach that kind of loading...they don't need to.

quote:

The Barth design and construction wouldn't work all that well in an aircraft, but Barths don't fly

The results of a "flying Barth" makes ya wonder.