Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Removing Paint


After removing the wings, landing gear, engine, and tail feathers, the paint was the next thing to come off! Be careful, contact with bare skin really burns!
This plane was a wheel plane from the factory back in 1980. This there was no corrosion proofing (standard with the factory float plane) under the original paint! The only good thing about it was that is came off really easily! Not like the epoxy primer and Imron that will be going back on when we are finished.


The windshield was replaced withing a year, thus we are trying to save it. All other windows are being replaced. Which is good because you could not see a thing out the rear! (That is the window we look out of to avoid for bird strikes... thats a pilot joke)

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Power Play part 2

When I got back to Peru a month ago, it did not take long before I experienced a power outage. It was a sunday morning and the last thing I wanted was to hear the sound of the fan coasting to a dead stop at 6am. Sure enough, it was another morning of for a "forced" green action day. However, I had an ace up my sleeve. The red Honda generator! Back in March I had hinted at getting one and since the purchase it has definitely paid for itself. Most notably on the day the World Cup Final was on, the power was out for that whole day!
I wired in a outlet box and made a "suicide" cord, with male terminals on both ends, and have the system down pat for switching between city and generator power. Sorry for not having any pictures but it seems as though in the shuffle of coming back to Peru my camera has disappeared. I know I had it in Peru because I took it on a flight, but unfortunately I have not seen it since then. =(


Anyways, part of the original plan was to put the Detroit Red Wings sticker on the generator... but it is pretty large and red on red just didn't go well. So I put the sticker on my flight knee board. I have my aviation charts, passenger manifest, calculator and E6B in one nice and tidy place. Guess it would work in the USA as well for those pilots out there, I am using the Redi-Rite model by Saunders. Some pieces of Velcro hold everything in place.