It isn’t every day you see an airplane camper rolling down the highway. By now I’ve lost count of the honks, the thumbs-ups, and the people pulling over just to snap a photo. That old fuselage has been my road companion for years, and every time I tow it out, folks ask the same thing: “Where on earth did you get that?”
Table of Contents
The Idea
It all started when I began attending a yearly festival in southern California called Wasteland Weekend. It was a Mad Max themed, post apocalyptic party. It was held for 3 days in the middle of September. Miles away from civilization in the middle of the Mojave desert. Luckily enough for me it was only an hours drive from my house. After attending once I was obsessed! It was an exhilarating gathering of artistic weirdos and misfits that wanted to party hard, make friends, and blow off steam in a way that was only possible in the Wastelands. Being that this festival was so far in the middle of the desert, camping was a necessity. 2011 I spent 5 days in the September heat in a small 3 man tent and ate spagetti-os with a make shift spoon. In 2012 I upgraded to the back of my truck, I stretched a blue tarp over pvc pipes to create a covered wagon of sorts out of a Ford Ranger. This was my attempt at sleeping in style. 2013 I tried to use my truck again but built a taller version of the tent. That year it was so windy it barely stayed together! I froze most of the event and would wake up covered in dust! In 2014, I decided that building my own tent was not a great idea and stayed in a 9 person pop up tent that I had borrowed. This gave me plenty of room to be comfortable. At this point I had been volunteering at the festival for four years! This meant some years I was living in my tent for up to 10 days! I settled on the idea that building a a teardrop style trailer for 2015 was the best move. Little did I know this would lead be down the rabbit hole of building a custom airplane camper
The Acquisition
In June of 2015 my father called my and said “Hey didn’t you say you wanted to build a camper trailer.” I said “yeah Im planning on building a teardrop.” He replied “I’m at the scrap yard and they have an airplane fuselage sitting here, do you think that would make a cool trailer?” I thought it was an interesting idea so I went to the scrap yard to see what he had found. You have to understand I grew up in a town at the entrance to a large Airforce base. Finding scrapped plane parts was not unheard of. When I drove into the scrap yard I saw the stripped fuselage of a passenger plane sitting on the ground in the back of the yard. The aluminum shined in the sun. I got out of my truck and looked more closely and took a few measurements before deciding it was exactly what I was looking for. I asked the scrap man how much he would sell it for. He though for a moment and said I’ll sell it to you for $1 a pound, thats what Ill make off of the scrap aluminum. He grabbed his forklift and placed it on the scale. It weighed 300lbs! I realized for $300 I had hit the jackpot and purchased it on the spot, the only problem was I didn’t know how to get it home. I ran to the local hardware store and rented the largest trailer they had. It turned out to be a car trailer and I went back to pickup the plane and drag it home.
The Build
I converted this fuselage into my dream camper between June and September of 2015. The fuselage itself started life as a 1961 Cessna 310M as far as I can tell. As you can see from the photo it had been entirely stripped down. There were no windows or door. The tail, wings and interior were long gone. I monumental load of work to do before it could possibly be used as a camper. First things first a camper trailer needs wheels so I needed to come up with a way to get this thing mobile. At first I was planning on custom building my own trailer to mount the plane to, however I am not a talented metal fabricator. Instead I decided it would be smarter to buy a trailer of some kind and modify it to fit the plane. I began a hunt for used trailers searching craigslist daily before stumbling across a lady in my town selling an old rotted out boat on a rusty 1960’s boat trailer. I called her up and went to take some measurements. Surprisingly the trailer was a perfect match. I negotiated with the lady and bought her boat/trailer for $180.00 and towed it home. Now the work could begin!
I stripped everything salvageable off of the boat and sold it before getting rid of the hull so I could free up the trailer. I took the trailer and stripped off the parts I didn’t need and took the trailer to a small shop to get sand blasted. Next step was to paint and prepare the trailer for the plane!
Now the easy parts were over. I filled in the windows with smoked acrylic pieces. Patched all of the holes I possibly could and put in 1000’s of pop rivets with a cheap harbor freight manual riveter(the hand and forearm pain was no joke). I custom fit a door to the cabin door opening and once I had blocked all of the openings. I started working on the interior. I filled the floor with fiberglass insulation put plywood down to create a walking surface. Next up I insulated the walls with styrofoam in an attempt to protect myself from the desert heat! Once the walls were complete I covered both them and the floors with indoor outdoor carpet from home depot! The plane was starting to look more like a camper!
The Accessories
A good camper needs to be more than just a shell! It needed some off grid upgrades!. I purchased a 100 watt solar panel and charge controller from harbor freight. I turned the nose of the plane into a battery bank and wired up a series of golf cart batteries that connected to an inverter and attached to several plugs I added throughout the plane. I used the solar rig to power a string of red rope lights I ran along the ceiling. I decided it also needed a radio! I added a bluetooth car stereo and wired it to 2 6×9 Rockford Fosgate speakers. I think the coolest thing about all of these additions was the components were switched on and off using old school toggle switches! The only thing I had to do was add a bed, chair and to decorate the exterior! I finished it just in time for Wasteland Weekend 2015!
Showtime!
The plane towed like a dream and attracted tons of attention. people really seemed to like it. I did discover some quirks however. It got very hot during the day and needed to have a fan installed. The Solar system wasn’t nearly as powerful as I had thought and I killed the batteries within a day or two. The door also didn’t fit perfectly which led to some dusty nights! Overall it was incredibly comfortable and did everything I needed! I had a blast and this airplane camper would become a small obsession of mine for years to come!
The cost of an Airplane Camper!
The creation of this airplane camper was cheaper than I had thought it would be when I first started this project. At the end of the day it cost me around $2400, 3 months of working 16 hour days, and a girlfriend. Without a doubt it was worth it!
Drop a comment if you have have built your own camper or have questions about this one and stay tuned for my next post where I will cover the modifications done to the airplane camper #2foothighclub
Check out our blog to read about fun places you can travel to with your camper!
