04.02.2008: Great news! On Sunday i received the information that the factory has started producing our kit. A colleague from Switzerland went to visit the factory and sent me some pictures of it:
I have also clarified the 51% issue of our kit today. To make sure we do not have any problems we will build the elevator and rudder ourselves at the factory. With that we will be well within the requirements to perform 51% of the steps to produce the plane, at the same level as other kits which have been accepted in the past. I am currently planning a trip for Rolf and myself to go to to CZAW to do the work, probably still in February. The kit should then be ready for pickup latest at the beginning of March.
I also finished all the documents for the project registration today, so that I can send them out tomorrow.
08.02.2008: I finally registered my kit with the Swiss Experimental Aviation Association. The project is getting more and more a reality.
10.02.2008: Yesterday I attended the seminar of the Experimental Association of Switzerland on flight testing. Attending the seminar is mandatory before the first flight. I found it very informative, and even though we do not even have the kit yet, and even less built it, it was time well spent. Especially if you want to build your kit relatively quickly it is always good to look a bit ahead.
I also exchanged some mails with Chip from Czech Aircraft Works. We finally settled on building the elevator and rudder at home, so that the 51% rule is well observed. He will just put the raw parts in the kit, rather than the finished assemblies. He also told me that he will accelerate the finishing of the kit, so it should probably be ready by the 22nd February, which is my Birthday! What a present…
The only problem this creates is that I have to prepare the workshop, which will be in my garage at home, within the next two weeks. Currently it it is filled with gardening tools, garden furniture, two rabbits in cages, car tires, 6 or so bicycles, old toys from the kids, wood for the fireplace and probably many other things I have been missing since long or do not even know we have them…. (by the way, our car is always parked outside).
15.02.2008: I learned today that the kit might be ready already at the end of next week! Now I am really pressed to continue with the garage… I also have to find a trailer to rent as we intend to pick up the kit ourselves.
16.02.2008: Those who have recently looked at the main “kitbuilding” page of this site might have seen that we have just reached the 50% mark on our time scale. And we don’t have the kit yet. It does not look that bad however. Preparation always takes a lot of time, and we have most open issues closed, like instrumentation etc., I therefore still believe that we are more or less on time with the project.
Today I was running around to find a trailer to pick up our kit. Of course most rental companies are closed on Saturday (Aargh), but I found two that seem to have what I am looking for and that I will contact on Monday.
19.02.2008: We are preparing for a visit to Czech Aircraft Works. We will drive there on Sunday to visit the factory on Monday. It seems that the delivery of the kit will take place next week.
We finally decided against transporting the kit ourselves. The trailers I could find for renting are all approximately 850 kg empty, which makes 1200 kg with the plane, engine etc. loaded onto it. My car can tow 1300 kg, which means we would be uncomfortably close to the limit. I would therefore have to rent a bigger car together with the trailer, which would bring the total cost to about the same level as having it shipped.
23.02.2008: Tomorrow we drive to Kunovice! On Monday we will take ownership our kit. It will then be loaded onto a truck and shipped to Switzerland where it should arrive on Tuesday afternoon!
I have been busy preparing the garage today, but I’m still not finished. I also built a wing stand to store the wings. It consists of two trolleys. The first one carries the wing spars of both wings at the root end, with the spars being fixed through some of the wing bolts holes, the other one carries the outer ends in a kind of bag. Both trolleys have wheels (from old office chairs I threw away during the Christmas holiday cleanup…) so that I can easily move the wings around. And as they are fixed to one of the trolley they can not fall over.
24.02.2008: Today Rolf and I finally drove to CZAW in the Czech Republic. We rented a car, as this was cheaper than taking our own car, and drove in 10 hours (including breaks) via Bregenz – Munich – Prague – Brno to Uherske Hradiste, where we stayed at the very nice Hotel Konicek (sorry for suppressing all the special Czech characters). In the evening we met Chip Erwin, CEO of CZAW, for a beer (or was it two?) and a very nice chat about the struggle to manage a fast growing company and the struggle with investors…
25.02.2008: The big day! We drove from Uherske Hradiste to Kunovice (5 minutes) to the CZAW factory. It is located in the former LET site (manufacturer of regional turboprop airliners Let 410/610, but also the famous Blanik glider). As promised by Chip our kit was ready:
We has some good laughs with the packing guy’s because of our four wheel undercarriage…
but then they converted it to skis…
Here the engine:
Most of the other bits and pieces were laying on a big pile ready for packing.
After some checking and also looking around the factory the truck arrived for loading:
They did not load their first kit, judging from their routine and also the pre-formed packing material they had available.
After everything was loaded and secured, the truck was sent on his way, so we hit the road again too. The TomTom decided we should drive back via Vienna – Salzburg – Munich – Bregenz, which we did in just about the same 10 hours as on the way out. It took the same time, but the roads were better…
26.02.2008: Today was an even bigger day than yesterday. Our kit arrived! At around 13:00 the truck driver called to tell me that he will be at the border in an hour, so we drove there to meet him. We had to pay the Swiss VAT (7.6%) cash, which was the easy part. Afterwards it took still quite a while because of the special forms they had to fill so that the plane can later be registered (no tax paid -> no registration). Luckily I had ordered the forms before, they probably wouldn’t even have had them.
Afterwards we drove to my house and unloaded the kit with the help of some friends. Everything still looked the same as the day before.
First we had to detach everything, which took quite a while.
The last bit was the heaviest one (Rotax), but no problem for four strong guys.
Here the fuselage, which we kept for the moment on the frame they had built at CZAW.
Below the trolleys I had built on Saturday. The wing spars are screwed to the one in the back so that they don’t fall down, which worked perfectly. The wheels allow us moving them around easily.
As you can see we noticed that there is enough room for the plants to remain in the garage, so I we moved them outside. I just hope we won’t get a heavy frost anymore.
Here the two builders, Rolf on the right and me on the left.
Unfortunately I have to go to Brussels tomorrow, so I won’t be able to start until Saturday….