OK - let's see if we can account for all the time that has passed without an update.
December to March - Most of this time was consumed by our day jobs. Both Todd & Dave recently moved to new positions and/or aircraft at the day job and a significant portion of our personal time went to completing training, etc. Oh, yeah, Christmas was in there too!
April to May - More of maxing out on the day job to help pay the bills. Most of the rest of available time was devoted to personal projects that needed to be done (stupid honey-do's).
June to Present - Day job is at peak of summer travel season, so guess what!?!? Yep, more of maxing out the day job. However, by taking advantage of as much down-time as possible, we have made a large amount of progress on aspects of "(re)building the company". So, even though we haven't gotten a great deal of work done on "building the airplane" - we have made great headway on understanding the processes involved with producing Prowler parts and then how they are assembled.
We have gone through almost every component of the tail and wing. We've analyzed and cataloged each piece and then considered how to mass produce each one. We've identified many possible simplifications and improvements that we will incorporate into our airplanes. Much of this work was done in collaboration with Bryan (see builder list) and we thank him for sharing his experiences and ideas.
This work will continue with the fuselage parts in the weeks ahead, but it's a pretty time consuming and intensive process. Also, since Bryan has not yet started his fuselage, we don't have the benefit of his experiences - so most things become more of a "what if" discussion.
All of this has an important purpose, and we'll keep most of this to ourselves for now - but suffice it to say that there is "solid" "works" in the Prowler's future.
We also managed to get a few days in at AirVenture 2008.
A Few More Highlights -
Bryan's Airplane: Bryan is making very good progress on his Prowler. He recently had a Tech Counselor review his work in preparation for closing up his wing. Here is a write-up that was published on his EAA Chapter's website:
http://www.eaa182.org/Brag%20Book%20Photos/Prowler/Prowlerproject.htm
Here is a pic of his wing (Top):
Here is a pic of his wing (Bottom):
Steve's Prowler - We've had some great email exchanges with Steve and look forward to more. We will be attempting to learn as much about Prowlers as we can with Steve's help. You might say that he is fairly skilled in the trade of engineering aircraft so we look forward to marveling at his insight. Here's a GREAT pic from his airplane's maiden flight:
George's Airplane Move - George has decided to move out of his hangar. So, we offered him storage in one of our sheds. Here are a few pics of "move-in day."
Here is a video of an engine maintenance run 5 weeks later:
This video was taken with a digital camera instead of a video camera, so you can see the camera "strobing" the prop. The prop is actually turnng around 1000-1200 rpm. You can see dust swirls as George cycles the prop. Believe us, there is a LOT of air moving behind that prop!
BTW - This airplane is FOR SALE. If you are interested, please send an email on the Contact Page of our website and we will put you in touch with George. Since it is George's personal aircraft, we will not even try to answer any questions about the airplane. We're sure that you'll understand why we say that for all of our sakes - "You'll have to talk to him." We will put you in contact with him.
The Look Ahead - Well, the busy summer travel season is drawing to a close and Sept is usually a slow month in the airline business. So, we will endeavor to get a few things done around the shop. We did get hardware at AirVenture this year to bolt and rivet the center section main wing spar together, so that is next on the agenda. We are also going to endeavor to assemble the Vert. Stab. Sub-Kit and "ship" it out to ourselves for assembly. Dave will be working on that in Fla. while Todd works on the wing spars in Cal. Of course, there is always more part cataloging of the fuselage to help keep "free time" to a bare minimum. Oh, yeah, did I ever mention 3 great kids.......
That's all the news for now. Thanks for stopping by to check out our blog. We'll try get back to making this a more regular event.
