After years of researching, studying, and finally placing the order – the RV-14A empennage kit finally arrived in New Jersey on Monday 4/2/2018! I was not available for delivery until Friday though the wait was not in vain as I was able to scramble to make final preparations in the workshop. All the effort really helped ensure there is a organized, pleasant environment in which to build. Considering all the time estimated to complete the kit (5 years?), it was time well invested.
My Father stepped in to help with delivery, as his van is large enough to handle the crate, which was 9.5′ long. We ended up going to the ABF depot in Troy Hills to pickup directly so as to not wait for delivery all day. Worked out well and there was some minor damage to the kit, but all looked in order.
Empennage kit as received from ABF loading dock
We got it back to house and unloaded onto a workbench to open up the crate.
It was a bit reminiscent of this scene:
Inside all the many parts were carefully wrapped with paper and taped together. It appeared all was generally undamaged, but there was one large skin that was deformed. Since it was nested inside another skin that was fine, it must have happened during packing. An email to Van’s on Monday resulted in the shipping me a new skin and taking care of it immediately.
What was next required was inventorying ALL the parts and hardware, including counting all nuts, bolts, screws, clevis pins, cotter pins, etc. The only not counted are rivets, which are checked by weighing them.
My daughter, Anna, stepped in to help with the inventorying over the better part of a Saturday and Sunday morning. A real trooper as it is tedious work and she also created all the labels for the bins where we stored the hardware. We also indicated on the inventory sheets (and the entered in an Excel file) what shelf or bin each part is so when needing to find them in the future, it’s really easy to do. A bit of time invested up front to hopefully save a LOT of time later. You can also see all the aluminum pieces on the shelves behind us.
After all the inventorying, it’s time to tackle a bunch of practice kits to reinforce the skills learned during the SportAir Workshop in November.