Southwest pilot transforms airplane catering truck into mobile home in 7 months
- A Southwest Airlines is living in a decommissioned catering truck
- It took him seven months to transform it into a tiny mobile home
- He bought the catering truck for $3,000
Published on Jun 19, 2024 at 7:39 PM (UTC+4)
by Amelia Jean Hershman-Jones
Last updated on Jun 20, 2024 at 12:59 PM (UTC+4)
Edited by
Daksh Chaudhary
A Southwest Airlines pilot has swapped the cockpit for a decommissioned airplane catering truck as he transformed it into a tiny mobile home.
He bought the catering truck for $3,000.
And the conversion took him just seven months from April 2020 to November.
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Where he got the airplane catering truck
Mark Pankey is a former US Air Force pilot from Louisiana, US.
After 20 years with the military, he retired and became a captain and commercial pilot.
Living in an apartment complex, he decided he was wasting money on rent.
He started living in his van and slept in airport parking lots when he wasn’t on the road – or in the sky – with plans to eventually build a house on a plot of land he owned.
However, when the pandemic hit and grounded flights, he decided he needed to rethink investing such a large sum.
“I had seen these box trucks at work, and I thought about how cool would it be to live in one of those, or to build one out,” he said.
“I was telling another pilot this, and sometime later he sent me a text saying that a whole bunch of them were being auctioned off in Seattle.”
Pankey bought a 20-year-old decommissioned Southwest Airlines catering truck for $3,300.
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How he converted it into a mobile home
He started converting it, using his Colorado apartment complex as a base.
He first cleared out the shelves before adding a slope to its flat roof, extending it by an extra two feet.
This made it taller, allowed him to collect rainwater, and meant that solar panels would be at angled towards the sun.
While originally made from fragile fiberglass, he covered the interior with spray foam insulation to keep it warm and soundproof.
When he had built most of the inside, he decided to paint its white exterior grey and added rivets to remind him of thee fighter planes he piloted in the Air Force.
While he had to remove the airline’s name and logo, it still retrains its original side banner.
“The snacks are on me,” the banner reads.
The hood of the truck features a spray-painted bird motif inspired by the car in the 1977 film, Smokey and the Bandit.
By November 2020 he was finished after spending between $30-50K , labeling his new home ‘SnakPak’.
While he never raises the scissor lift the full 5 m (17 ft), he boosts it by 1.5-1.8 m (5-6 ft) when parked to ensure it’s level with the front deck.
The box section of the truck is 4.3 m (14 ft) long.
With loft and storage cabinets one end, the middle section has a kitchen countertop.
Pankey sleeps on a queen-sized mattress in the loft, accessed via a telescopic ladder,
The other end of the box section holds the composting toilet and spacious, corner shower cubicle.
He uses wires and magnets to keep his belongings in place while driving.
Step outside and the deck is furnished with artificial turf, a small table, grill and stove, and an outdoor shower.
As well as harnessing solar power and collecting rain, the truck is equipped with a plug, allowing him to power up at campgrounds and RV parks.
After selling his Colorado land and apartment, Pankey has been living full-time in the converted aircraft catering truck for over three years, often using his Toyota Tacoma to tow it.
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All Supercar Blondie contributors undergo editorial review and fact-checking to ensure accuracy and authority in automotive journalism. After gaining her BA Hons in French and English at the University of Nottingham, Amelia embarked on a vocational diploma from the National Council for the Training of Journalists (NCTJ). This led to numerous opportunities, from interning at Vogue to being on the small team that launched Women’s Health magazine in the UK, which was named the PPA Consumer magazine of the year for three years running. As Health, Beauty and Fitness editor, Amelia personally received a Johnson & Johnson Award and was shortlisted for both PPA and BSME titles. Since then, Amelia has created content for numerous titles and brands, including the Telegraph, 111 Skin, Waitrose, Red magazine, Stylist, and Elle, as well as being Head of Content at Vitality and Editor in Chief at INLondon magazine. “My superpower is translating technical jargon about the mechanical workings of a supercar into a relatable story you’ll want to share with your friends after you’ve read it.” After joining the SB Media family as a senior journalist in September of 2023, Amelia’s role has evolved to see her heading up the SEO output of the editorial team. From researching the most ‘Google-able’ key terms to producing evergreen content - it’s been a time of hard work, growth, and success for the editorial team and the Supercar Blondie website. “I like to think of myself as a ‘method journalist’. In other words: I live and breathe whatever I am writing about. When writing about fitness, I trained as a personal trainer, and as a beauty editor, I completed an ‘expert’ in scent diploma with the Fragrance Foundation. “During my tenure at Supercar Blondie, however, I did something I never thought possible: I passed my driving test at the age of 36. One day I’d love to train as a mechanic to better understand what happens under the hood, too. “My sweet spot is providing readers with a ‘takeaway’ (read: something new they didn’t know before) after reading every one of my stories. While I don’t claim to be an expert in the automotive world, I know the experts and bodies in the field to rely on to provide our readers with an informative and thought-provoking story every time they visit the site.”
