Abe's Tie Down Systems
 Offering Choice,
 Versatility, and
 Dependability

 Pull Tests in the Backcountry:
 Comparing FlyTies, The Claw™, and Abe’s Tie Down Systems

The leading tie-down systems were tested at popular back country test sites per the tables below. The first table shows the weights held, rankings, and percentage of highest ranked system for each test scenario. Overall rankings are also provided per system which show overall average weight held and percentage of each system versus the overall leader - Abe's Double Anchor with Holding Rods System.

For marketing purposes, I could have tested my systems in ideal locations and given you some great numbers that may be real, but not realistic. No, you need to compare apples to apples and oranges to oranges.

As expected, we found a wide range of weights that the different tie down systems held because of the varying soil types found at the different sites. But now we are comparing apples to apples when it comes to the holding strength of several tie down systems.

The lower table has descriptions of the ground and soil makeup found at each of the seven locations.

Test Location (Soil details below):	Big Bar	Minam Lodge	Johnson Creek	Moose Creek	Big Creek	Chamberlain Basin	Red’s Horse Ranch
Airport Identifier:	(None)	7OR0	U32	1U1	U60	U79	6OR9
Date:	6-13-10	6-23-10	6-26-10	8-4-10	9-6-10	9-6-10	9-17-10
Temperature:	60º	62º	65º	58º	38º	68º	59º
Abe’s Double Anchor with Holding Rods
Max. Weight Held:	280 lbs	740 lbs	700 lbs	1050 lbs	950 lbs	900 lbs	940 lbs
Ranking @ this Site:	1st	1st	1st	1st	1st	1st	1st
% of 1st @ this Site:	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%
Overall Ranking:	1st
Overall Ave. Wt. Held:	794 lbs
Overall % of #1 Ranked:	100%
Abe’s Double Anchor without Holding Rods
Max. Weight Held:	230 lbs	460 lbs	460 lbs	690 lbs	540 lbs	700 lbs	600 lbs
Ranking @ this Site:	Tied-2nd	3rd	2nd	2nd	3rd	2nd	2nd
% of 1st @ this Site:	82%	62%	66%	66%	57%	78%	64%
Overall Ranking:	2nd
Overall Ave. Wt. Held:	526 lbs
Overall % of #1 Ranked:	66%
The Claw™
Max. Weight Held:	200 lbs	500 lbs	400 lbs	620 lbs	480 lbs	550 lbs	580 lbs
Ranking @ this Site:	4th	2nd	3rd	4th	4th	4th	3rd
% of 1st @ this Site:	71%	68%	57%	59%	51%	61%	62%
Overall Ranking:	3rd
Overall Ave. Wt. Held:	476 lbs
Overall % of #1 Ranked:	60%
Abe’s Single Anchor with Holding Rods
Max. Weight Held:	230 lbs	420 lbs	360 lbs	640 lbs	440 lbs	490 lbs	460 lbs
Ranking @ this Site:	Tied-2nd	4th	4th	3rd	5th	5th	4th
% of 1st @ this Site:	82%	57%	51%	61%	46%	54%	49%
Overall Ranking:	4th
Overall Ave. Wt. Held:	434 lbs
Overall % of #1 Ranked:	55%
FlyTie
Max. Weight Held:	130 lbs	230 lbs	220 lbs	410 lbs	550 lbs	570 lbs	390 lbs
Ranking @ this Site:	5th	5th	5th	5th	2nd	3rd	5th
% of 1st @ this Site:	46%	31%	31%	39%	58%	63%	41%
Overall Ranking:	5th
Overall Ave. Wt. Held:	357 lbs
Overall % of #1 Ranked:	45%

TEST SITE SOIL CONDITIONS
Big Bar	Grass & cactus cover with river rock laden sandy soil
Minam Lodge	Grass sod cover with river rock laden soil
Johnson Creek	Grass sod cover with granite rock laden soil
Moose Creek	Light grass sod cover with packed soil with few rocks
Big Creek	Light grass sod with compacted rocky soil
Chamberlain Basin	Light grass sod cover with good soil with few rocks
Red’s Horse Ranch	Grass sod cover with good soil with few rocks

Recreational aviation tie downs, do you need them and how well do they work? For those pilots who get off the beaten path so you can enjoy a different type of recreation than the asphalt has to offer, you’ve got to be prepared to answer these questions.

First of all you must be up front with yourself and honestly know how much you have invested in your aircraft and how much risk (in time & money) are you willing to take in the event your aircraft is damaged as a result of not being properly tied down.

Assuming that you decided that the investment you have in your aircraft is worth protecting, you now need to ask yourself where it is you’ll be flying into that may require you to have your own tie down system.

The overriding parameter of any tie down system and how well it works is “soil type”. That and that alone will dictate how good any tie down system will perform. The one question I get asked the most since getting into the tie down business some 6-years ago is, how much will your system hold. And my pat answer is what type of soil is at the location where you will be using your tie downs.

That is why I have never published weights as to how much our system would hold, simply because the soil types that you are using to tie down your aircraft in may not be what I did my pull test in.

For marketing purposes, I could have tested my systems in ideal locations and given you some great numbers that may be real, but not realistic. No, you need to compare apples to apples and oranges to oranges.

To be able to give the consumer realistic numbers, I took on the task during 2010 to test two of the most popular tie down systems, FlyTie and The Claw™ with ours. We performed the pull tests on the same day, at the same location (within a 15’ circle) and at 7-backcountry locations that some of you may be familiar with.

From June through September of 2010 we took our testing gear to Big Bar on the Idaho side of the Snake River in Hell’s Canyon, Minam Lodge and Red’s Horse Ranch in NE Oregon, then Johnson Creek, Moose Creek, Big Creek and Chamberlain Basin, all in Idaho.

We used a Sherline commercial pull scale that went from 60 to 2000 lbs in increments of 20 lbs. This scale was attached to a wood tripod and attached to the tie down system with a hand operated come-along to test both FlyTie and The Claw™. Our systems were designed to be pulled at an angle rather than straight up, so our systems were tested with the same scale and come-along, but attached to nearby trees (or in the case at Big Bar, a nearby hay thrashing machine due to no trees on location) rather than the tripod. Abe’s systems can be set up to be used as a single or double anchor tie down system, so our tests compared one version of our single anchor and two versions of our double anchor systems along with FlyTie and The Claw™ systems.

At each test location we recorded the date, time, temperature and a description of the ground and soil makeup. We conducted our tests in an area at each site where you might tie down your aircraft. Each of the five systems were tested within a 15’- diameter circle at each test site, so each system would be tested in the same ground and soil makeup.

We put each system in place in the ground and pulled on it with the come along attached to the scale until it was pulled out of the ground. The highest poundage indicated on scale dial (within 10 lbs) during the pull test was recorded for each of the five systems.

 

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Basic 3-Kit, Basic 5-Kit, Deluxe 3-Kit, Deluxe 5-Kit


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