When I flew Beech 1900D’s for Skyway Airlines out of Milwaukee, we had a captain that was board by the time we had the gear in the wells. Probably because he had about 10,000 hours flying the ‘Beech Airliner’ around Wisconsin and da U. P. of Michigan. He had literally been there and done that and had the coffee stains on his pilot shirt to prove it. Anyways, we wouldn’t be 30 seconds into the flight before he asked, “Are we there yet?” He did this every leg. The first leg of the trip, it was funny… not so much every leg there after. Today, all I could think about was, “Are we there yet?”
It was more sanding most of the day. First filled some of the deeper imperfections on the cowl and canopy with spot putty and then sanded it. Rinsed everything and primed. So we got 4 coats of primer on the canopy, top cowl, nose hatch doors, oil check door, and rudders.
I got done with the priming a bit early, so I spent about 45 minutes cleaning up some things in the shop before Sean, the upholsterer, arrived. Both the front and rear seats needed some minor tweaking. Since the rear seat will be Kevin’s most the time, Sean and Kevin worked together to make it right. It was originally fitted to me, and wasn’t comfortable for Kevin. For anyone needing to make a rear seat, make sure it fits the one who will be sitting back there so they don’t want to land every hour. 🙂 Sean has taken the cushions back to his shop and should be getting started on the sewing this week. I will post in-progress photos as he sends them to me.
After dinner, I spent another hour shading on the right strake and longeron. I am not quite done with it, and have a lot more sanding to do on the rest of the fuselage and other side strake. I just ran out of steam, and was starting to loose any finesse. I think we may be able to settle for some spot priming after this round of sanding on the fuselage. After all, its only “temporarily” flying in this primer, and I am ready to be there!
the Garaggio 