Well, we're over halfway to Oshkosh now since the last update (yes we keep track of time using Oshkosh as a reference), and although unfortunately I don't have a ton of progress to report, I thought I'd make a quick update. I think we left off complaining about the basement flooding...again. Fortunately, it wasn't too big of a mess or hassle, and within a week or two things were pretty much back to normal in that department. Both Sarah and I have had a number of things going on though, keeping us mostly away from the garage. Every now and then we'd sneak out there and sand a bit on the cabin cover, but really hardly any measurable progress has been made.
So let's see... where to start? Oh yeah, we got a new puppy!!! Guess what we named him?
Our new puppy - Cleco!!
I don't have to explain to this audience why we named him Cleco... but unfortunately everyone else we run into needs a quick explanation, always with the same unenthusiastic reaction of "oh... cool." It's alright, we think it's a good name for him. We got him from the local animal shelter, and he has adapted to our household very well, and gets along great with our other dog Mesa. Training and housebreaking is going "ok" so far, as I'm sure anyone who's raised a puppy can agree it's no small task and takes no small commitment!
Shortly after bringing home our new pup at some point in early April, I ended up getting in touch with fellow RV-10 builder Ed Kranz up in the Minneapolis area, and he very graciously offered for Sarah and I to come up and see his plane (now completed and flying) in person before it went in for paint. That was an offer we couldn't pass up! One of the primary things I was interested in seeing was his G3X avionics setup, which was very similar to what we've purchased, except for the fact that he had opted for the "whole hog" and has three beautiful 10" screens in his panel as opposed to my two. He is an advocate of the three-display approach, so that you can have a full-screen PFD and then use the center screen as the MFD. In a two-display setup like ours, the second panel is too far off to the right to contain much useful data for the person in the left seat (and vice versa).
Ed's three-display RV-10 panel in action
It was so cool to be able to get up there and see the very airplane I had been watching come together online over the past few years, and not only that but get a chance to go flying in it! Thanks so much again to Ed for your generosity and hospitality... we are truly grateful to be part of such a cool community of builders. Can't wait to "pay it forward" for some future builders in our plane when it's done... but now I'm getting ahead of myself :-)
Anyway, after a short flight back home in "Julie" the Archer, I had to step into the shop for a minute with some mockups and start playing around:
N165MJ with three 10" displays
N165MJ with a 7" center display
It's tempting... very tempting. We'll see how things go. Another thing to point out is I've gotten rid of the GRT Mini-X in favor of the new Garmin G5 EFIS, as well as swapped out audio panels from the GMA350c to the GMA245. I've actually been able to sell off those new-in-box items I had already purchased, and place an order with Stein for the new stuff. It should work out pretty close to a wash, maybe even a few dollars in my favor, and I'll have all the "latest and greatest" Garmin stuff. The audio panel may be regarded as a bit of a step down from the flagship 350c, but the new 245 actually has all of the features I wanted out of the 350c, and it interfaces better with the rest of the G3X system. And it's cheaper, so it's really a win-win! I think basically the only thing I lose is the voice command feature... which I wasn't really too excited about in the first place anyway.
So after the trip up north to see Ed and his plane, our schedules became almost completely filled up with "stuff" to do, and so we never really got any time to get back into the shop. I participated in a spot landing contest and LOST. Ugh. I landed about 2 feet short of the line, which is disqualifying. The winner landed about 20 feet beyond the line. Video of my attempt here:
Even two months later, still sore about this :-)
After that whole ordeal, I spent about the next 3 weeks holed up in my office, coding up and designing a new website for our EAA chapter. Back in February, I had been elected President of our local Chapter 33 (sounds pretty cool when I say it that way huh?), and the first order of business I wanted to achieve was improve our method of communication and simplify our website, making it easier to browse and maintain than before. It's just a basic Wordpress-powered site, but don't let the simple theme fool you... it still took weeks of work and thousands of lines of PHP code to make it all work the way I wanted. Fun stuff!! See the site here: http://www.eaa33.org.
At some point in here, I built a new cutting table and storage rack for rolls of fiberglass, peel ply, and upholstery that rolls around on the floor and collapses for storage. It also has a rack along the top that holds a number of wire spools for when we get around to wiring everything up. I'll throw a picture of it in here soon.
Next up was a Young Eagles Rally, held at our "home" airport in Marion and sponsored by our Chapter. It ended up not as busy as we had hoped, but I did have the opportunity to make a flight that I think easily counts as the most rewarding thing I've had the privilege to do yet in an airplane... take my friend Jenny's son Dylan up for a ride. Dylan has autism, and at first I wasn't sure how things were going to go on the flight. Those concerns melted away as we performed our takeoff roll... here's one of my favorite videos that I've ever taken (there are a couple others from the flight on my youtube channel if you're interested):
Young Eagles flight with Dylan - Takeoff!
That was a flight I will not soon forget... so happy that it worked out the way it did! We're looking forward very much to the next Young Eagles Rally!
So let's see... other than that, I took my friend Brannen on a surprise "Bachelor's Day" flight the week before he got married. We went to Lone Rock, WI (KLNR) for breakfast at the Piccadilly Lilly Airport Diner, followed by a day in Oshkosh (KOSH) to visit the EAA museum, and then finished the day with dinner in Prairie du Chien, WI (KPDC) at Jones Black Angus, a nice steakhouse right across the street from the airport. Fun times!
Brannen (left), Roy (center), and Me (right) up to no good flying "Julie" the Archer all over WI!
Memorial day weekend came and went faster than I could have ever imagined (thanks in no small part to Brannen's wedding... congrats to you and Becca!), propelling us straight into June now, again with very little progress to report on the plane. Lately, I've been sneaking out to the garage a bit more and continuing on the cabin cover. The A-pillars are nearly complete, and they are finally contoured the way I had envisioned, with very few high or low spots remaining. Again, will get some pics on this soon.
Lastly, we're getting more and more excited for OSH16 as it approaches... we even got a new tent!
Our new OSH tent, set up and ready for waterproofing in our hangar
That's about it for now. Unfortunately, the hits just keep on coming as far as distractions go. This weekend, we have a benefit to attend for a good friend in need of a heart transplant, followed by a deep-cleaning of our house in preparation for the upcoming Father's Day weekend, when my parents are coming to visit from NY to spend the week. HOPEFULLY, when that is all over with, by the end of next week, we can get back to spending some serious time in the garage.
See you all then!