I have a 30 year old Skamper pop-up on a basic 2016 Ford F150 XL shortbed. I love the ability to stealth camp when the top is down and it's light enough that I can still tow a small trailer with motorcycles. The base F150 handles it with no issues. At a sustained 75-80 mph, my gas mileage goes from 22 mpg to about 16.5.
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One great aspect of the old 1988 Skamper is that it is SOLID plywood and has an aluminum roof. No compressed sawdust MDF or rot anywere. Unfortunately, the Skamper has very little internal storage, the normal dings of 30 years, & looks dated enough that I'm looking for something newer and light enough for the F150. Unfortunately so far, the newer ones cost more than I want to spend.
The camper was made for small bed trucks like the Ranger and Tacoma, has an empty weight of 800, and gross weight of only 950 lbs. I had to build an 8" tall rack to elevate the bed area to clear the top of the truck's cab and at each corner a turnbuckle and chain are rated to nearly double what the entire camper weighs. I've done some basic calcs and as an engineer am not concerned about the capability of the Ford corner tie-downs for this. Even with the lifted camper the combo has been rock solid in big side winds. A 6 ft ladder fits beneath in the rack and the ladder is for both boarding the tailgate and tying kayaks to the roof.
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I had three reasons to post. One was that it works and is easily within the weight capability of the truck, the second was the need for the rack. But the real reason for posting is the hazard of using small truck camper jack poles for the extra height. Even putting the jacks on concrete blocks, the camper sways to and fro enough to make jack collapse a potential reality. This problem was compounded on my sloped driveway. If a jack collapses, the camper is going to fall on YOU. After doing it with the spindly poles once, my response was to build a set of lifts out of 2x6s with 1100# winches from Tractor Supply. Now I can have it on or off in about 20-30 minutes.
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One last note about connecting the front turnbuckles. Before mounting the camper, I attach the chains and turnbuckles to the forward corner truck bed points. Then tie a string to the tops of the turnbuckles and hang the string over the sides of the truck bed. That way, when the camper is in place, you can simply put the string through the screw eyes on the camper and pull up the turnbuckles to connect them. Otherwise, you need a skinny little person to connect the chains through the hatches in the front corners of the camper. You can see the string in the photo of the rack if you look in the right forward corner of the truck bed.
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