Backing and hooking

I am almost ashamed to put this in the "Questions from New Drivers" section since I am well into my second year and I still can't get this down despite spending countless hours on practicing my backing and coupling. I kinda want some advice from people that have significant amount of experience in getting this down (which will probably be a good chunk of people).

I am trying my hardest to back a 48ft trailer (with a converter dolly attached to the back) and make it connect to a 28ft trailer. Standard Rocky Mt Double.

I've gotten some great advice which helped out tremendously over the past years. One of them being that you turn your wheel in the direction you want your dolly to go. In a sense, if you want your con gear to move left, crank your wheel left which will make your trailer turn right, which in turn will push your converter dolly to the left. Easy enough right? Yeah. So I thought.

The key problems I am having is

1. The approach
2. Length of trailer. My con gear responds slower due to the long trailer
3. Speed... am I backing too fast?
4. I cant see a freaken thing half the time out of my mirrors



1. What is the easiest way to approach your back trailer? Assuming it sat in the middle of the yard and you had enough room from any angle? Would you pull along the left side of it and then cranked it to the left so the back box appears in the left mirror? If you did that, would you try to do a straight line backing or would you try to angle it like a 45 degree alley-dock? I've noticed it is easier to see the back of your trailer doing a 45 degree... but I've seen tons of people just do a straight line back.

2. The pintle hook on the back of the 48 ft trailer has a "plunger" system built in to keep the converter dolly from separating from the rear of the trailer if you forget to lock in the pintle hook. My question is, how much does this safety device secure the dolly from movement? Is this something that varies? And also, what is the best SETUP? Should the con gear, trailer, and power unit be as straight as possible? I had one driver tell me that it doesnt matter how jacked your power unit and trailer were as long as the con gear was in line with the trailer.

3. I was told that as soon as I caught the con gear jacking, I need to pull up to correct it. My question is, lets say the gear jacks to the left too much but needs to go to the right, which way should I turn my steering wheel? Should I pull my power unit/trailer straight as well? Or just straighten out the con gear and trailer?

4. What am I supposed to see out of booth mirrors if I am doing a straight line back? Should I see nothing of the con gear at all, or should a see a bit more of the left/right side of the tyres?

Thanks for your help in advance.

 

One of our guys backed his 48 ft trailer with gear about 30 yards in a straight line. He even pushed on the gas to go faster and he hooked in 10 seconds.

Another guys I noted backed DOUBLE trailers against a converter dolly (which was spotted infront of a third trailer) and hooked his triples like that. Those guys I talked to are ####y as hell. And all they tell me is: The easiest way to get this down is to "just do it".

 

Staging a con-gear is how I started out at. Most people that are new in the double/triple trailer field will just do that. The reason why I want to get proficient in backing a con attached to a trailer is because sometimes the con is already attached. I used to just jacknife the second trailer behind the con gear, and then hook my set that way. Another main reason is that once winter hits, it is extremely time consuming to spot a con gear infront of your rear box and then try to get it to latch on to the rear of your lead box. You are fighting a slippery ground plus sometimes the yards/drop off location will be anything but level. It would be much safer to just back with the gear already attached.