It’s just about time for me to sell my A-7E Corsair II ejection seat. It might fit into a box, and it might be under 70 pounds (it’s close), so I might be able to ship it by UPS. But when I bought it back in the '80s it was delivered by truck freight.
Assuming that’s the way it has to be shipped…
[ul][li]How do I go about it?[/li]How much would it cost?[/ul]
UPS does LTL. I don’t know what it costs, but you could call them up to at least get a baseline.
Putting some, admittedly, made up numbers into UPS freight, I’m coming up with about 500 to send it halfway across the country (WI to CA). Sending it with two CA zip codes I guess at, makes it about half that.
To and/or from residential address added over two hundred dollars. Needing a lift gate truck added $125.
So, if you can ship it to and from a business and don’t need a gate at either end, it shouldn’t be overly expensive.
500 simoleons is a lot of dough for a thousand-dollar ejection seat, especially since (if it doesn’t quite meet the limitations) it is so close to meeting the limitations.
The ejection charge might get into regulations that didn’t exist in the '80s. Barring that, I’ve heard of folks doing cheap shipping by bus.
Sadly, the rocket was removed before I got it. Pull on any of the yellow-and-black things, and the only thing it does is activate the canopy penetrators (which are a PITA to reset, BTW). Except for the yellow-and-black lever in the headrest. That ‘safeties’ the other yellow-and-black things.
That was just UPS though. You could certainly call up a freight company and see what they would charge.
Are you just trying to get an general idea or do you actually have a location in mind? If you already know where it’s going, you could put something out on Craigslist or taskrabbit and see if someone with a pickup or van will do it. If it’s going less than a few hours away, someone might be happy to do it for considerably less.
Just trying to get a general idea.
Well if it is close to 70 pounds it is well within either UPS or Fedex 150 pound limit. The big question is then the size:
https://www.ups.com/us/en/help-center/sri/sze2.page
If this won’t work get a quote from Uship (multiple carriers) when you find out where it is going:
That shows how long it’s been since I’ve shipped anything by UPS. Last time I checked, the weight limit was 70 pounds.
Land freight may require a commercial address for pick up and delivery. They want to load from and unload to loading docks. They may also charge you a hefty additional fee for residential address. Check for local freight companies and call them. It is usually far less than consumer oriented shippers like FexEx and UPS will charge, but it may take a longer to make the delivery while a truck makes a number of other stops first.
As far as shipping LTL (less then truckload) goes, I’d suggest checking with a broker like Unishippers*. They work with multiple freight companies and can get you a better rate than you can get on your own.
*not affiliated with this company, but I have used them in the past.
This. Had a good experience with U-Ship. Shippers bid on the job, and you need not take the lowest bidder. You can chat with them to determine whether they’ve got the equipment to meet your needs (e.g. covered vs. uncovered trailer). Sometimes the bidders are just guys with a pickup truck and trailer who happen to be traveling in the general vicinity of your start/end points, and they’re just looking for a little extra gas money, so you can get a price that easily beats a professional hauler. The flip side is that they may not be insured, so make you you know what deal you’re making before you hand your goods off to the shipper.
Randomly looking on ebay without really knowing what I’m looking for and just randomly looking around ebay. I’m seeing ejection seats ranging from $1500-$10000 and shipping from $100 to $500.
You could consider mentioning a shipping price of $xxx.xx (and building in some leeway to the cost in case it goes over) or just adding $500 to the price you want.
Your search parameters are better than mine. I get a bunch of models, and few actual ejection seats.
What you would do is use calculated shipping if Fedex would work.