2.8 Hours -
The ABF truck pulled up to my house around 12:30 this afternoon. About 15 minutes after that, two large crates were in my garage and the delivery guy was gone. My wing kit is finally here.
The wing kit has arrived!
Without hesitation, I started to inspect the crates. There was some slight damage to the spar crate where it looked like a forklift tire rubbed against it. However, it didn’t look like the damage extended to the inside of the crate. The skin crate had a lot of foot prints on top of the crate, but otherwise looked to be in good shape. So, I pulled out a pry bar and opened them up.
The only damage was on the spar crate where it looks like a tire rubbed against it. It doesn't look like the inside was damaged.
No damage to the inside of the crate.
Why are there so many footprints on the top of the skins crate?
In typical Van’s fashion, everything was nicely packed. Layers upon layers of parts were wrapped in paper and nestled into the crates. Removing one wrapped package would reveal several others. Often parts were packed inside of parts. I continued unpacking for about an hour, and I still hadn’t made it to the spars (on the bottom of the spar crate) or the skins (on the bottom of the skin crate). However, I had unpacked most of the smaller parts and placed them on my workbench.
In true Van's fashion, there is no wasted space in the crates and everything is nicely wrapped.
I placed smaller parts on my work bench as I unwrapped them.
The leading edge skins are tied down.
Once the twine was cut, the skins "flew" open and revealed many more parts hiding inside.
Moments later, I removed a final layer of cardboard, and there were the spars. Since the spars are one of the most crucial components of the airplane, the factory builds them. Not only do they build them, but they gold anodize them as well. I have to admit, the spars and the spar center section look amazing.
It took a lot of unpacking before I reached the spars. The picture shows the center section...beautifully finished at the factory.
I decided to wait to unpack the skins and start the hardware inventory instead. The hardware bag is a plastic bag that contains about 40 smaller bags. Each of the small bags holds one or more types of hardware. Lucky me…I get to count each and every piece!
There's a lot of hardware in the wings, and I get to count every screw, bolt, platenut, etc.
After almost two hours of hardware inventory, I had only counted about half the hardware, but I decided to call it a day. It feels great to get back to some serious building again!
