Hey, yesterday I posted a link to the "store," and I just wanted to make something perfectly clear. I don't make any money on this crap. It was just a way for me to kill some time and make some cool stuff for myself. I wanted the hat, the sticker, shirt, etc. I figured there may be some rvproject.com diehards out there who might be into it. CafePress is pretty cool...it lets you upload your own graphics and set 'em up on various products -- shirts, caps, mugs, etc. Their site is oriented so you can run a "business" off their interface. They let you pick your own markup of each product. Their "cost" prices aren't very low to begin with, but it's a cool way to produce shirts and stuff if you need to. Anyway, I'm more or less just playing around. I'm not trying to make any money off this. I set all the prices at cost plus ZERO. Anyway, just trying to set the record straight in case people thought this was a ploy to make money.
Enough about that. The work I started on the gear leg fairings is kinda on hold until I can get some more -P1 hinge. I ordered it from Spruce the other day but it's on back order. No rush.
Let's see, what else. Real work is picking up nicely, although I'm still terribly uninspired by what my company does. Isn't that always the case? The coolest stuff never makes any money, and it's the kinda lame stuff that eeks out a market and manages to survive. I need to find ways to trick myself into thinking that work is actually interesting. It's not as bad as I make it sound...it's all about problem solving and fabricating and hooking modules together. Not unlike aircraft building...yeah, that's the ticket.
And yard work. That's my latest thing (well, today it was). Weeding and sweeping and spraying and all that. Sprinkler repair. Whoever originally put the sprinkler system together at this house didn't put much care into it. There have been three leaks for weeks, and I had those stations shut down temporarily. Two of them were trivial and I fixed 'em today. One is down deep in the soil and I gotta dig up the flower bed in front of the house. No big deal, just something I'm not excited about doing. Maybe in a few days you'll see photos of a sprinkler system plumbed with aluminum tubing, teflon steel braided hose, and AN fittings...
Thanks for all the good luck and well wishes coming in via email and instant messages. I'm really looking forward to this weekend. As of right now, I'm not nervous in the least. I have total faith in the design, I have confidence that I've built the plane well enough that it ain't going anywhere, and enough people have checked it out and given it the thumbs-up that it has really put my mind at ease. The DAR inspection on Saturday will be interesting. I'm sure stuff will come up. But the way that engine ran, and my confidence level being where it is, I'm about as ready as I'll ever be. I don't mean to sound cocky, because this is all balanced with PLENTY of thoughts of self-preparation for landing on Euclid (the street running perpendicular to the end of the runways), landing on the grass across the street, or terminating the takeoff run. I'm going through all these scenarios in my mind to prepare. Thoughts of temperatures in the red and having to land pronto. Anything can happen, but I'm not too worried about it. I friggin' dig flying for the entirety of it. The possibility, no, probability that things will go wrong. My constant, innate need to buck authority -- in this case to give the finger to gravity -- and the persistence of the imaginary maneuvers that I dreamed up as a kid, these are things that make flying satisfying and always attractive. I used to build forts out of blankets on top of chairs, but they weren't shelters, they were the cockpit I was sitting in -- and believe it or not, I often pretended with a stick and a throttle...probably before I even knew what those things were. I dream of flying even when I'm flying. All of the flying I've already done is just a taste of what lies ahead. I feel like an elastic band stretched far back, held there waiting to be released. I can't wait to taste the fruits of my labor.
Waiting. This really isn't as bad as you might think. If I had just launched right into Phase I as soon as things were "done" then I think I would have definitely missed out on this lull. Really, after a couple of years or more of working on this project every freakin' day, waiting a couple of weeks has been no big thing. It has been days of not bumping into stumbling blocks, not straining myself physically or mentally, not being confused, not being run-down and tired. This is really a treat. I'm not just rationalizing. I know of one other RV-7 builder who has his DAR inspection this coming Saturday as well, and he's not done...he said he has a punch list of stuff he has to get finished first. That's actually usually my style, to work all the way to the finish. But I gotta say that this is so much more relaxing. All that talk about using these weeks to get centered and all that...mission accomplished. And Jen...she's been much happier lately it seems. I stay home all day when she's here. When she goes to work at night I run my errands, occasionally do stuff at the hangar, do work, watch my stupid shows that she doesn't like, etc. So this is what normal life -- life after building -- feels like? I like it. I highly recommend a "spin-down" period before your inspection. I don't know it any other way but I can guess...and this ain't bad.