Best tow vehicle for Shasta Airflyte 16' 1961 Reissue (new)

[MojoGuzzi]

Close to finalizing purchase of a new 16ft Shasta Airflyte 1961 Reissue travel trailer. I was planning to tow it with a 2005 Ford Escape AWD V6 3.0. The current Class 2 1 ¼” receiver hitch is rated at 3500 GVW, and 350 lbs max tongue weight, so I think I will need to have the current class 2 hitch replaced with a Class 3. I’ve been told by the RV dealer that the trailer weight is 2600 lbs empty, with a tongue weight of 415 lbs.
a. Does this tongue weight (415) sound right?
b. The Draw-Tite hitch dealer said that with that tongue weight I should have an equalizing arm and head. True?
c. I’m curious as to what kinds of vehicle/hitches other Airflyte owners are using. I thought that the Airflyte was supposed to be easy to tow, but it seems to require a pretty beefy hitch. It also makes me wonder if the Escape has enough guts to tow this trailer.


Thanks, any advice welcome.

[ctairflyte417]

I had a 2012 Honda Pilot when I purchased my Shasta Airflyte 16'. Quickly found that it did not have enough horsepower or torque to efficiently tow the trailer. Highway gas mileage dropped from 22 to 11 mpg. So I sold the Pilot and purchased a 2013 Ford F150 with a 5.0 liter, V8 engine. It has 100 more horses and torque. It pulls the trailer much better although gas mileage is still impacted but not as much.