Grand Finale

November 8346 Juliet returned to the air today!

The first start. It all checked out!

The cowl is on.

Taxi-ing out to the fuel pumps.

Taxi-ing out to Runway 23.

departing 23.

Gotta love that climb prop!!

On approach to 23.

On final.

On short final.

On REALLY short final.

The flair!

Engine

Here is the engine, freshly arrived and ready to hang on the airplane.

Mechanic extradinaire Dennis Toepke hard at work. The engine is attached to the airplane and the prop has been mounted. The prop will need to come off. We discovered that the mounting plate for the spinner is cracked.

The interior is finished!

Progress

A lot has been done, but not much for photos. The majority of the carpet is finished, all except the right kick panel. It will get done this week. One seat is upholstered (see previous) and the left seat is left to do. It also must get done this week.

I invented a reasonable Push-to-Talk switch. The previous one was velcro-ed on and would not stay put. The above photo shows my invention. It is a standard cable clamp with a momentary contact switch bolting the thing to the yoke. It isn't much different than the previous one, except that its stays put.

The engine arrives on the 21st and everything should be complete, and the airplane airworthy, by the 22nd.

Seats

Here is the right seat, re-upholstered and ready to be installed. The seats won't go back in until after the engine is installed. Juliet is due for an annual inspection, which we will do while installing the engine. The seats need to be out for that.

Carpet

The new carpet is almost completely installed. The kick panels need to be done and installed and that project is over. Also note the the cleaned and repainted door panels are installed. The problem with the door panels is that they accentuate the ugly yellow door posts and other interior metal. The only cure would have been to completely strip out the interior and paint everything. That was too big a project this time around.