16 March 2005 Images

16 March 2005

Thumbnails of little bits and pieces of progress, plus items of interest to simulator building friends (images 12 through 21), are posted below.  Click on a thumbnail to see the high resolution images, file sizes as shown.  I evidently moved while capturing image 18, the top side of a cockpit sunscreen panel, so it's fuzzy - sorry about that.

There's nothing dramatic to report, but I have installed the right angle of attack sensor and the cockpit window wiper motors from the Lake City freighter as shown in image 1 and, in the case of the wipers, images 5 and 6.  I also added several blank cockpit module cover panels to the P5 panel and others, eliminating all the holes in the P5 panel.  And I installed the flight and voice recorder canisters, aka the black box canisters, which are red, as shown in image 11.  All these were very thoroughly cleaned first of course, as were the oxygen masks and headphones shown in image 10.

But in spite of the remarkably great weather, thus far that's all I've installed from the Lake City freighter.  I've cleaned several other items, but a lot more cleaning work remains.  All the material that's too large to transport in my car still resides at my neighbor's nut processing facility, which is fine since I'm not ready for those items yet.  But I've hauled all the smaller items to my site, except for one last load I think, where most of it rests on the right wing or landing gear platforms, awaiting pressure washing.

It's wonderful to have the wiper motors and wipers installed - I've lusted for those for years.  But the four Lake City freighter emergency exit doors, one of which is shown in image 22, don't have the right mounting collars for my fascia panels, a major disappointment.  The doors are in fine shape, but they don't solve my problem, so they leave another years long component acquisition challenge unresolved, alas.

The cockpit would look a great deal better if I reinstalled the panels and crew seats, which is probably less than a half day job.  But they intrude upon reconstruction work that still needs attention, so bear with me as I plod along.  It will look much better later, with the dramatic appearance change taking place when the time comes to replace the fascia panels and the crew seats.

My inability to devote full time to the project is an increasing source of frustration, and it won't improve in the next month due to tax accounting backlogs and business pressures.  But I'd sure like to get the landing gear pillars built this summer.  I have no credible information to base this fear upon, but I'm haunted by the possibility that the Juan de Fuca ridge could release at any time, and I feel like I've pressed my luck with it's timing too much already.  If it did happen now, the aircraft would probably roll off of the existing platforms, resulting in terrible damage.  I'll feel a lot more comfortable when the pillars are in place.  Accomplishing that won't be easy though, for two reasons.  I finally have some funds in the bank, but not much, and if enough, probably only barely so.  And there are daunting problems to try to resolve with the county before I can acquire a building permit.  I hope there's some means such as a provisional permit that would allow me to just build the pillars so as to safe the aircraft, but I've not inquired about that yet.

Regards, Bruce

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