Ray almost wrote my progress report for me, except I'm a lot closer to flying! I towed N891JF it out to the airport late Friday (see http://www.n56ml.com/n891jf/140524_028m2.jpg ), by replacing the tailwheel with the receiver from my Harbor Freight trailer and towing it on the gear. I got a lot of waves, thumbs up, and people who followed me for miles without passing, despite plenty of opportunities. I pulled off the road at one point to let a guy by in a hilly curved part (I was only doing 25 mph) and rather than pass, he pulled up next to me and asked "does it run?". I could only blurt out "oh YEAH!". I was a very happy boy when I got home from the airport.
I spent most of yesterday helping with the airport workday, but got the wings on it last night. The panel turned out pretty nicely...see http://www.n56ml.com/n891jf/panel/panel_final_hdr.jpg for the final shot of that. The belly board speed brake is totally done. I expect a huge difference. I'll do the weight and balance today, but expect no surprises. Afterwards, I'll do some taxi testing to test out the brakes and that sort of thing, and spend some time getting more familiar with the MGL Explorer, as well as the general layout of the controls (which is very similar to N56ML). I would fly it tomorrow if the condition inspection was signed off...but it's not. Although I'm surrounded by A&Ps at my airport, none of them do it professionally, and don't have the insurance for it. I can't blame them, but it now looks like I'm going to have to pay somebody to do it to get it over with, and after finishing up the details today, that'll be the only holdup. It won't take me long to get this straightened out though, and if the weather's decent next weekend, I should be back in the air. It's even possible that I may get it signed off tomorrow, and if so, I could be flying in time to capture the sunset tomorrow! And like Ray, getting that airplane out of my basement opens up a lot of space. I'm also moving all the boxes of airplane support stuff back to the hangar, so my workshop is getting a whole lot less cluttered in a hurry! I foresee a summer of cleaning up and reorganizing my basement, and a dose of the same for the neglected hangar. I feel like I'm alive again... Mark Langford ML at N56ML.com website at http://www.N56ML.com --------------------------------------------------------
