Here's the instrument panel as of last week:
Next week the Flying Fish and his friend the Mechanical Genius are going back up to the Glasair factory to install the panel, run all the control wiring, and install the engine in the airplane. After that it will get loaded up on a truck with wings folded back to be delivered to our warehouse for final fit and finish work.
Been flying a vintage 40's aircraft for the past year. I'm going to have to learn how to use all those newfangled instruments!
I oughta to be studying for my checkride, so I'm watching old Reclamation Era film clips - just watched one about the Hoover Dam. The narrator's so amazed at their achievement and so proud. It's such a Big Deal - of an unprecedented and nearly unimaginable scale - kinda like the destruction of New Orleans last fall, but the exact opposite. Check this out...
"Every section of the country was called upon to contribute to the staggering quantity and wide diversity of materials required."
(great vocabulary too)
"Every state of the union contributed its quota of laborers and artisans. It was not long before roads and rail lines had penetrated into the lowest reaches of the canyon. To provide these arteries of transportation, thousands of tons of virgin rock were blasted from the age-old walls of the gorge. Thus the first thunders of man’s determination to conquer the Colorado River reverberated between the sheer cliffs of the canyon which heretofore had known only the hot silence of the desert and the roar of the river’s angry floods.”
“As the work of placing [concrete] progressed, the crews became expert in the handling of equipment and record-breaking daily pours were made only to be surpassed by later achievements on this same structure.”(and incredible new technology)“From the switchyard (where the most highly specialized and modern developments in the power transmission field are to be found) the lines travel out across the desert bringing light to the homes and cities and power to the factories of the great southwest."There’s another quick little film about a North Platte river - how it contains a 2-year water supply and is used for “irrigation; by which a high degree of control is maintained over the application of the water to the land, coupled with mild western climates serve to make fruits...”
“The settlers' tents give way in a few years to fine well-kept rural homes – a far cry from the sagebrush...”They did a lot of work on our core infrastructure making the west and southwest habitable for everyone who lives there now. Now we sit in our homes, tapping away on our computers and take their work for granted.
It's interesting to compare the Hoover Dam with the Three Rivers dam currently under construction in China. There's been a lot of outcry over that project. People displaced, species uprooted or exterminated, environmental havoc, etc. but I have to wonder whether China will see just as many core hibituation impovements as we saw in the American West as a result of our dams.
Worth noting that the Hoover Dam took 4 years in development, and two years of sitework (diverting the river) before they could start on construction. Constructing the dam took two years (funny, the first house I built took two years and it didn't have nearly as much concrete - even though it was a concrete house.) They installed and started up generators over the next four years as the reservoir filled (that took six years). A total of 8 years work after 4 years planning. That's a pretty aggressive schedule.
Major progress on the remodel. Reframed the south wall over the nook, fridge and fireplace with J. and the roof didn't collapse while we did it. Yay.
Also hauled off the pile in the driveway that's been accumulating the past two months. Four trips to the dump totalling 2760 lbs of rubble.
I so tired.
Oh, and did I mention we're also in the middle of a remodel?
It's every bit as bad as it looks. Only the bath is functional at this point, and only cold water. No heat. Outlets and switches dangling from cables in the middle of the room. Rubble and dust everywhere. (sigh) Remodels are just that way. They suck. You never know how you're actually going to build anything new until you take out what's there and see how it was built in the first place. Then you always run into stuff you didn't know was there. Unless you don't, and then you have to figure out how to deal with that...
Yeah, I know, I'm a buildergrrl so this should be no big deal. But to be honest, I'm a new construction type of builder. I usually start a project with a bulldozer - because I HATE REMODELS. (sigh)
Living in the remodel just makes it all that much worse. Nothing works, there's dust and rubble and crap everywhere, everything you own is in boxes under sheets and plastic - so who knows where anything is?? Trying to do your own remodel is like trying to drill and fill your own cavity - it's messy, no working space, no perspective, and absolutely no reason to do it yourself - unless you're a dentist and even then I bet it sucks.
I'm getting out of town this weekend.
Next week I'm camping in the back yard. Seriously.
The Flying Fish and his oldest friend have begun building 322MikeXray, the plane we plan to fly to Patagonia and back in the winter of 07-08. 322MX is a Glasair Sportsman. An experimental class airplane. Seats 4, carries a cubic shitload of gear, can be configured as trike, taildragger, or with floats. It's comparable to the 1950's era Cessna 180 that we currently fly, but with more modern materials, aerodynamics, engine and avionics.
Here's day one of the build:
Flying Fish & Friend will be up at the Glasair factory in Arlington, WA for the next two weeks putting together the airframe. They'll go back a few weeks later to install the engine. Then 322MX will come back to our warehouse for instrument panel install and final fit and finish. Estimated completion is in the fall 2006.
