Picking up my kit

The stage was set.

Early Friday morning I jumped out of bed. I walked to my already packed bag, made sure I had everything, and then puled my clothes on and brushed my teeth. I fed my lizards plenty of crickets to keep them alive over my absence. I watered my plants extra. After checking my Email a million times in the 20 min before it was time to leave, I walked out to the van. Well, it seems if you want the trailer to be hooked up and the proper tools to be loaded up, you need to go out a little sooner than 1 min before it is time to leave. It took only 10 min to pack up and leave. I racked my brain wondering if I had forgotten anything. Of course I had, but I didn't know that at the time. The drive was monotonous as most are. My dad and I listened to podcasts until our ears bled and then shoved more in.*

Just at 7:00 Pm We rolled into the VAA Meeting at Gardener airport. My dad had been telling me that Jack Pelton President of the "VAA" was the guest speaker. That was pretty cool. Well It was Jack Pelton at the meeting, but not president of VAA but EAA, I know, The whole EAA. That was more than cool that was once or twice in a lifetime! He talked for 2 hours, telling everything from his past, to how he was recruited to be president, to everything he was doing legally to make flying better for everyone involved. I have to admit, even though he was interesting on more than one occasion, I snuck off to get free snacks.

At the conclusion of the meeting, I was bursting with excitement, and told everyone about how I was here to get my kit. I even got to catch Jack Pelton's ear for a bit. It seemed that everyone wanted to talk to him, but I used my crowd navigating skills to slip in close and get a picture with him.

As Pilots slowly departed, I heard my dad making plans to go flying in the morning! We already had a sonex, and supercub coming! I relaxed my grim fro a few seconds and then went back to talking to people. I talked to Bob Mika who pretty well talked me into making bombs for my plane. I looked around after listening to a step by step process on how to make bombs (oops that sounds suspicious) Nearly everyone was gone. I Shook hands with Mr Ron and told him how excited I was then my dad and I hopped in the van to follow Mr Ron's truck to his house.

It was then that I saw my kit for the first time. It was beautiful. Mr Ron, The seller, had done an amazing job building it. being 10:00PM meant that I had to sleep and not just stare at my new kit envisioning all the fun I was going to have building it. I slept (not much to say there)

I climbed into the Supercub's back seat and stared at the fully inflated wind sock. "This was going to be an interesting flight!" Aside from some severe headwinds, and riding in a new airplane nothing much happened. (yes riding it was windy enough that I didn't ask to fly, something which I already regret) We landed and quickly put the wheels in the grass (to avoid a runaway plane) One Amazing breakfast later I was back in the air, this time in Mr Bob's sonex.

A quick check of the awos revealed that the windswere 19 gusting to 33! It is safe to say that we hauled butt on downwind. Landing in 33 Knot winds requires 1 part skill, and 1 part luck. Mr Bob is a great pilot so we had the 1 part of skill, and lucky  for us we won the coin toss and survived the landing fully intact. I met up with dad and ,after gathering supplies, we left for garderner airport

*This is hyperbole. (just in case anyone took me seriously)

We arrived at the airport to find not an ugly hunk of scrap swift , but a beautiful swift in excellent  even flying condition.

The Easter egg hunt begins! My dad and I riffled through the hanger looking for anything Sonex. this is what we found.

Dad and I maneuvered the tail feathers into the back of the Van

Time to load the wingskins (that thing on the left is the sparbox, it is filled with currently unknown treasures)

That's it for the airport, time to return to Mr Ron's house to load up the rest.

Loading the completed control surfaces.

Elevator incoming

Cowling next

Motor mount (Jab 3300)

Cowling better not crack!

We returned to the airport to load up the wings. As we worked more and more pilots wandered over to help, I even got an official photo taker.

Hmm That didn't work, better stack them one on top another so the forward ribs don't flap themselves to death.

And that's exactly what we did.

          Detour to talk to a builder, who wandered over, about his Pitts build project

                                   Now back to strapping down the wings

Closing the deal with Mr Ron

      

                                                     Victory Chipotle!

                                      After a homedepot run, the wings got skinned with cardboard, something tells me this is not a factory approved mod.

Disaster strikes! Fluttering cardboard apparently self destructs. And subsequently rains down all over the highway. Lucky for me Dad knew just how to strap it down in order to avoid a repeat incident.

We stopped in at a friend's house to stay the night and this is what happened when the hitch was unlocked and lifted.

The ground did not appreciate being scratched, so it called its buddy, the sky. The sky got back at us by unloading a few billion tons of Water on my soon to be plane.

During this time of no pictures, we slept and hoped the rain didn't soak through the cardboard. It did, and quite thoroughly so. We (Dad) also drove across much of Missouri.

Hmm, something doesn't feel right, 2 min later "O no the Tire! It has delaminated!"

Everything is in remarkably different shape than it was just a few hours ago.

Rain, Rain beautiful rain.

Tightening the ratchet straps(an endless task of crushing the soaked cardboard), and making sure nothing fell off.