Shop is back online!

Alright….Finally!  Today’s major push was getting the motorcycle lift —that I picked up CHEAP at Harbor Freight for my custom motorcycle project (that gets finished after this airplane!)— out from under the fuselage and into the room just behind the garage.  A room that once served as a billiards hall that now is a parts predeployment & storage facility… did I mention I want to get this bird finished and out of my house!  ha!

(sorry for the blurry pic)

Blurry Pic

Apparently the gods favored me this day because when I measured the width of the motorcycle lift crate it was 29″ wide.  The doorframe leading into the house surprisingly was over 30″.  Could it be this EZ?  Well, besides this thing weighing a LOT, it was fairly EZ.  Especially since I had it on 2 furniture mover dollies.

Moving bike lift out!

When I took my big behemoth Eaton compressor out of my other house to store it at a friend’s house, I had bought 2 more furniture dollies to mount it on to make it mobile.  Since I just recently sold that compressor, I was able to reclaim those furniture dollies, which came in real handy here. I simply slid the motorcycle lift through the door and off the garage dollies onto the set of dollies inside the house.

Moving bike lift out!

It took around 30 minutes total, but I got this beast moved!

Moving bike lift out!

It’s nice to have my shop floor back (to an extent) and be able to freely move the fuselage around.

Ahhh, working space!

Obviously, it’s still a bit tighter quarters than I prefer, but hey, it beats the micro-garage I was working in while in Germany!  So alles ist gut!

Time to get to work!

My first Long-EZ ride!

Yes, it may sound a little crazy or unbelievable, but I have been building my Long-EZ for over 5 years now and have never actually flown in one until this past week!  The timing actually worked out in the grand scheme of things.  If tried a bit last year at Rough River to get a ride but never actually did.  When my buddy Marco bought his Terry Lamb-built Long-EZ a couple of months ago (a beautiful airplane), he had to A) learn to fly it, then B) fly off 10 hours before he could fly passengers in it, thus satisfying the insurance companies demands.  Last Sunday (7 Aug) he finished his 10 hours, and due to both our schedules, the only time I could fly with him in the near future was Monday, 8 August.  So I scooted down to Marco’s Sunday evening, we flew Monday, then I returned back to the DC area Tuesday.  I headed straight to the airport to pick up yet another out-of-town visitor!

I have to say that while flying the Long-EZ for the first time was a blast (albeit from the back seat), it was also a bit anti-climatic.  The tales and yarns of how difficult and unique this bird is to fly seem to be a bit over-dramatized and exaggerated, and I’m not sure why. This plane is a pleasure to fly and it handles very well.  Of course, the overarching impact of my personal historic first Long-EZ flight is that I am incredibly motivated to get my bird built and in the sky!

I hope you enjoy the video!  Cheers.