Hensley Arrow: How does it REALLY work?

willald wrote:
2. Burbman, myself vs. Ron Gratz and Tluxon, in the argument of whether or not the hensley forms somewhat of a 'virtual' lock from the trailer end, when being pulled on/tensioned. No, its not a complete 100% lock, but due to the forces involved, its pretty close to such.

Did you have a swingset when you were a kid? Remember the contraption that 2 people could sit in facing each other and swing to and fro? I believe they still make patio swings that pivot in a similar manner. The seat stays relatively level while allowing a fairly good motion horizontally. If someone really heavy sits in that kind of swing, it takes more to get them swinging, but they can still swing. Now if you take that really heavy kid and have him plant his feet firmly against the ground, it's much more difficult to get him swinging. This is how I see the orange head (or rear bar) of the Hensley, only it has the added benefit of forcing the trailer to pivot opposite the direction it is trying to pivot when applying a lateral force at the hitch.

TeryT wrote:
1. Has anyone tried putting the trailer wheels on dollies, as someone suggested, to see if they can get movement with lateral force?

Though it sounds good in theory, something tells me this would not work, as the trailer will have a tremendous amount of inertia that you're going to try to spin one way while the linkage only allows lateral movement if it is spinning the opposite way. You'd have to somehow manipulate it such that the head trans-rotates as shown in Dave's video (http://home.comcast.net/~tbluxon/Hensley_Motion_sm.WMV), which I think would be nearly impossible to do with any full size trailer.

Tim