After nearly two months from the day she left the factory, my Sling 2 quick-build kit has found its way to my shop.
We were on the clock to get everything unloaded and to restore the container to a completely empty and clean condition. Heartfelt thanks to my good friend Charlie, my wife Mary Ann and our nephew Brandon for their indispensable assistance. We extracted the contents of the container with great care and had no issues of any kind. It all went perfectly. Nevertheless, the process certainly called for a good bit of thought and anticipation of the challenges – there are some, to be sure.
Everyone pitched in, including the truck driver. He was very intrigued by the whole affair and happily offered to help. He had no idea what was in the container and his eyes were almost bigger than mine when the seal was broken and the doors opened to reveal an airplane inside! Wow! How cool is that?!
The fuselage, two wing panels and four wooden crates were sequenced out of the container. Initially, the three biggest crates had to go in to the garage. The wings fit perfectly on my handy EAA stands. The fuselage is still perched (and bolted) on the shipping structure, just as it was inside the container. I did loosen the bolts holding the rear [wooden] shipping structure, just prior to extraction from the container. This was to allow some play between the framework and the empennage mounting points on the fuselage, where it had been tightly bolted during shipping. I didn’t want anything on the airframe to get stressed or bent as we moved the unwieldy payload from the container to the shop.
It’s all very exciting. The next steps are to complete parts inventory and build inspections.