Saturday, September 29, 2007

LATEST FROM PROWLER AVIATION

Well, it may not be readily apparent, but there has been a lot going on here at Prowler Aviation the past 6-8 weeks.
FIRST - HAPPY BIRTHDAYS! September 2007 is the end of our second year as the new Prowler Aviation. We have made our last payment to George and now truly own the company. September also saw a big milestone for George. He celebrated his 80th birthday this past month with his family in Santa Cruz. Happy Birthday George!
SECOND - DAY JOBS! Both Dave and I are looking at upcoming training at work. Dave is currently in upgrade training for the A320 and I will be transitioning to the A320 sometime in December. We've both been working a lot in a effort to keep this project funded.
THIRD - SET-UP AND ORGANIZATION. The shop has been getting some final touches to get ready for building our first aircraft. I added several sections of base cabinets and a counter top for "clean" work and a double tub laundry sink for clean up.

I also have building lots of shelves and other organizational storage places. In this pic you can see the shelves for hand tools between the garage doors. There are more just out of sight in this pic. Also note the wing jig off to the right side of the pic.

I also fashioned together an aluminum storage rack that also doubles as a pattern holder for all the wing spar patterns and drill jigs. Here you can see where the 4' x 12' sheets stand vertically in the storage cart.

And here you can see the storage for the wing spar patterns and jigs.

FOURTH - ALUMINUM IS ON THE WAY! We have ordered all the aluminum we will need to build the first Prowler. We actually thought we got the first part of our shipments on Sept 25th.

Turns out this was actually a shipment of stainless steel that was destined for a company in Germantown, WI. A transposing of the last two numbers of a work order number caused it to end up at the shop by accident. It was pretty stuff, but stainless tends to make for very heavy airplanes!It has since been re-packed and delivered back to the trucking company. Our 3 deliveries will all be picked up on Oct 2nd. Wing spar building will begin soon.