How hard is it to back up a trailer?

this episode was supported with community donations in this episode of fast lion i'll be learning how to reverse a

trailer

driving this this is alarmingly fast ok let's go farm it's impossible can be can't do tractor today i'm here with Crawford of Crawford's Farm. It's a YouTube channel about raising other farmers. thats a risky youtube huh i didnt know how it would work yeah and youtube didnt like it that much anyway the point is its a fantastic scottish youtube channel all about firefighters and he contacted me and said why No. you come and you learn a little bit so today you have a challenge for me and it's about this saw what i want you to be able to do drive this tractor first you gotta learn how to do that and then put a

trailer

on the

back

of that big trailer and i'm going to make you

back

towards that big shed behind us without erasing the shed.

I like how you call it shed. Look at this. Look at the size. Good. universal channel stuff all the time with a you know how laid back is a skill i take for granted but if you haven't done it before it's pretty tricky yeah i think i think this will be fine ok where do we start we're going to show you how to drive that to get you off to a good start cool let's do it crawford insisted i put this on to show off more of the park this is the most excited i've been to learn how to do something in years honestly predicted 10 minutes tops this is huge tractor that's why you asked me how tall was for this and i accidentally answered seven foot nine doesn't look good that's just what you got for me so good this is a new holland seven to ten so 210 means 210 horsepower Crawford then proceeded to explain the intricacies of this tractor which I found difficult to appreciate.

Yeah, it's like a pair of Bugatti Veyrons. Yes. In fact, I've driven one of these before. where do we start let's put you in the driver's seat and i'll show you what the reverse buttons do on the trailer on a tractor this is day one zero hour yeah so let's get comfortable yeah before we try to drive Crawford first gave me a quick demo of the interior which I thought was complicated it's exactly like a car where the gear stack is yeah how many sets did we get exactly like a bike three ranges or three there's three ranges of I think it goes six six seven like this it will count from 1 to 19. what's up wait how many gears does it have 19 19 19. it seems like it's too many and it has 19 gears and it still goes this slow on the highway yes and that's clutch yes clutch brakes there are two brakes on the left and at the right are connected together and there's another pedal here don't click you said this was like a car right?

It has a great 19 speed so you don't need the clutch other than that one spot. yes but it has four wheels and the steering wheel is ok cover it up funny farm machinery is measured in hours not mileage so this is done almost six thousand hours that's how long I've spent between dark souls you're ready to drive yeah clutch good what you gonna do with the clutch So you've got this shuttle here and you go, it's in, so once you pull it over there, now it's forward, can I release the clutch? okay don't run over Kevin don't hit the sheds anywhere else okay so you can drop the clutch all the way yeah and then I can use the gas yeah yeah I like it you like it yeah let's go home.

Whats Next? Okay, we're a tractor. This is alarmingly fast. Now we are at full power. I like this. I think farming suits me. Little man and a big car. I need to use these cryptic buttons, switches and sliders, oh I don't like this at all. far away oh yeah yeah oh my god i had someone there oh perfect all the way oh right oh man that was

hard

and you only do that like 10 times a day yeah well usually once the trailer is on you're good but yeah it's pretty, it's much easier in Farming Simulator instead of immediately destroying Crawford's barn by backing into it.

It seemed prudent to practice backing up the trailer in the field first. Okay, these hay bales represent the road, yes, so you'll sit here. it doesn't spike no beat it's alright alright and then you're going back back don't hit those bills reverse through that Gap through that through that Gap that's small I couldn't reverse my Pole through there and I have to pass around here without touching these and this is what your bar represents yeah so if you hit that in real life or once we get it right I'll be destroying your property yeah I can back through these hay bales You should be able to back towards the barn full of confidence gained from a video game.

I try. This tractor weighs seven tons and the empty trailer weighs six tons. To think that someone has let me loose on his farm. with so much equipment it's absolutely mental this is impossible i feel like i could have cut a haystack just maybe so i see the hay bale in my crosshairs and now i need to back off now we're too tight too tight let's get on with the story it always was I either couldn't get the trailer to turn at all or it turned too

hard

and I turned the wrong way anyway, oh as hard as we go for the life of me I couldn't figure out what it was. doing wrong I give up I'm not too proud to admit when I need help it's impossible it can't be it can't be done there's no way it's going to get there so why is it so hard to get it right it's hard first the tractor and the trailers they are huge it's hard to see the rear of the trailer in your mirrors but that's not really the problem here, the problem stems from the fact that when you back up you're stealing from behind, when you go forward you just point the wheels in the direction you you want to go and steer going backwards now the steering wheels are at the rear so you have to position the front wheels so the rear wheels are facing the correct direction this is inherently unstable and this is why you need to constantly correct your steering when reversing, add a trailer into the mix and now you need to position the tractor so the trailer wheels are pointing where you want to go, so many layers of Separation melt your brain. chain it's easy to pull the chain however you want, but virtually impossible to push it in the right direction.

I'm having so much trouble, this is impossible, maybe a demo from the teacher, okay, so like this, yeah, pretending I understood what Crawford was saying, I tried again, right? I'm in control now ok Let's fix this this time lapse shows no matter what I tried I just couldn't point the trailer in the right direction Crawford tried to explain things again and this time he said something that clicked for me forget the wheel steering ignore the direction of the front wheels forget about turning backwards forget all that just focus on the angle between the trailer and the tractor when the trailer points where you want it to keep that angle and for me that was finally something that did sense oh sure that was better let's try again we had to make sure I really had this under control before we tried it for real in the barn but it felt like something clicked yeah iron man right what He told me it clicked, ignore the front wheels. correct, the important thing is the angle between the tractor and the trailer, that's what Mars.

I was also able to replay the ability on demand which meant I felt like I was ready for the actual test of the pie right one more I got it right yeah let's hope I don't destroy your bloody barn huh I must admit there's a bit of apprehension here because well i'm expecting a try to drive to crawford's barn if i mess up his barn well how much do you think a barn costs? It's a lot next time. I'm behind a trucker who's going too slow. I'm not going to complain because he is built for comfort and is remarkably uncomfortable at all times to try the real thing.

Crawford insisted that for this to be realistic the trailer needs to be full so he loaded 16 tons of wheat on it that's no thanks oh my gosh that's great right we're in and nobody's dead and the link still well the barn still stands oh yeah look I'm farming I grew something I never grew I never sold it and I never harvested it investing in the shed I tell you what Crawford trusts me way more than he should because even though I did it successfully, I didn't know if I could do the property or not, oh I think that's enough. one day this episode was supported primarily through a tip jar model on patreon.

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