Painted and Back Home

The plane is finally reassembled and home from the paint shop. I took off work today and was out at the paint shop by 7:30. I was out there working all day Saturday and Sunday until 9:00 putting things back together. As of Sunday morning, the only thing left to assemble was the ailerons. I'd painted them late Saturday and they were ready to go. I installed them and pulled it out of the paint shop. Here she is at 8:30.

Next stop, across to the other side of Smoketown airport to see my trusted A&P, Dennis Glick. I want to do the post-paint weight and balance.change the oil, fix a dripping sump drain, soft left brake pedal and cycled the gear on jacks. It's quite a list to accomplish today, especially given that I want to fly it home when we're done.

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Dennis and Jared in his shop  - Dutchland Aviation at Smoketown airport. Dennis has been an invaluable resource to me on both my Velocity projects. I literally trust him with my life. If you have an aircraft within a reasonable distance from Southeastern Pennsylvania, I could not recommend him or his mechanics more highly. We got the rental scales in before 9:00 and the weight and balance done within an hour. The gear was cycled and emergency gear extension drop tested.

I ran the engine to heat up the oil, then Dennis coached me through the oil changing process. We then test ran the engine again with the cowling off to check for leaks. None were found and I reinstalled the cowling. Now I was ready to go.

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It was 3:00 by the time everything was done and I pulled her out of the hangar. Time to head to the fuel pumps, then back my hangar at Chester County Airport. The good news - it finally cleared up and stopped raining today. The bad news - the wind sock is standing straight out and flapping like crazy. There is a quartering headwind here and home at 18 knots, gusting to 20. Not exactly what I'd hoped for on my first time in the plane since December. Oh well, time to pull up my socks and "Git 'R Done".

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Made it! After getting airborne, I quickly decided to just get the plane home and put off any flight testing or practice until tomorrow night. I was bouncing around so hard that my headset flew off. It was really rough. I had to wrestle with the gusts all the way to the runway, but managed to make a nice landing. It's nice to get back in the air and to reassure myself that I can still handle challenging conditions.
Time to call the wife and kids to see the plane and to give me a ride to pick up my car.

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I finally get to show them what all the work was for. If you click on the picture, you'll get an idea of just how windy it was.

Sean seems reassured by the more finished look of the plane and can't wait for a ride.

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The new roof liner looks much better. It's more finished and gives me more headroom. The improved upright seating position was also a big improvement.

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Here are a few nice shots  on the ramp at Chester County.

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The kids help me untie the plane and I taxi down to the hangar.


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Back in my hangar safe, sound and a whole lot better looking. I am tired, dirty and thankful to finally have the plane finished. It's ready for our big trip to the Bahamas and no more funny looks about the green/grey paint job.

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