Fuselage Time

Today I picked up my "new" fuselage.  Was super excited to get a huge piece of the cub.  It's used, but in pretty good condition.  I brought it home and removed the remaining pieces.  I dropped it off this afternoon at the sand blasting shop to get blasted so I can inspect it further and prepare it for modifications I''d like to do.  I called around to different shops today about modifying the fuselage the way I'd like it.  Most shops would not let me assist in helping, but Dan's Aircraft was very reasonable and said that they'd let me assist the welder.  This will cut the cost down substantially and also allow me to keep tabs on the progress.  I plan on bringing it by about the 15th of July.

I'm planning on rebuilding the fuselage first now.  Once the fuselage is done at the sand blasters, I'll have all my mods installed.  Then I plan on starting with the interior.  I'm going by Plaschem tomorrow to discuss with a fellow the use of carbon fiber with my rebuild.  One the phone last week he told me he has floor boards, rear seat and storage bin under the seat, and a lower extended baggage that just drops right in the fuselage.  With these mods he said I'd save around 20lbs on the average rebuild.  I like hearing this.  We will see tomorrow.

My "newish" fuselage.  Lots of new adventures planned with this thing!

The 180lb/3rd Seat Mod.  Being previously installed, this saved me lots of money.

The X Brace over the roof.  Another mod previously installed that might save my life again, and also saved me tons of money.

This is the only area that will require a bit of attention.  The left hand longeron has a slight bend in it and I want to change the X Brace back here.  Rather than being boxed in, if we X the tail, it seems to withstand the beating the tails get on these birds.

I flew again on Monday with Era Alaska.  It was a heck of a day... 9.5 hours behind the yoke of the 1900.  This is good, because we all know I could use the money for my rebuild project.  I got to visit Barrow on one of our legs.  It was good to see all my friends up there, and believe it or not, I missed that place!  Sure feels good to be based in Anchorage for awhile though.  The trip from Barrow back to Anchorage in the 1900 was 3 hours long!