Hi Folks,

Months ago I made a goal to try my best to get this bird done before the Rough River fly-in.  Yes, a crazy goal… but I knew it would keep me working on the plane full bore.  So much of these builds are like running a marathon… mental motivation.  As in staying motivated.  

When it was clearly obvious that I wasn’t going to make Rough River, I took a break for almost a week to head back up to the DC area to simply relax and visit friends.  Upon my return I’ve been getting some personal things done and am really just getting back into the build.

With the fuselage still inverted I’ve knocked out nearly all of the “micro” (West 410 + micro) finishing on the bottom surfaces of the airplane and the subsequent epoxy wipes ala the Corey Bird finishing method.

Within days I expect to be be diving into knocking out the main gear leg-to-fuselage interface fairings as well.

Concurrent with completing the gear fairings I plan on doing a fair amount of priming and painting on the bottom side of the bird as well.

Yep, I expect this bird to be inverted for another 2-3 weeks (ha!) before it gets flipped back upright to close out the strakes with the top skin install.

After the top strakes it will be on to the winglet/rudder install (Chapter 20).  Then engine and top cowling install, topside finish and prime/paint.