Wiring Woes

I've been up to my neck in wiring the plane way too long. It's been weeks of a lot of staring and getting not much done.
I finally made enough progress to have the intercom and radio working. This has been way too much trouble, and I let myself get away with the KISS principle. Keep It Simple Stupid!
Well, it's not simple, it's too fucking complicated for my simple mind, but it's too late to simplify it. I wanted a cool looking panel to go with my cool looking leather interior, and I will have to admit, It is very cool! To make it simpler, it would cost another $3000-4000, which I don't have, but I'm spending money like it's going out of style anyway on it....
This is the last plane I plan to build and I'll keep it until I can't fly anymore, so what's the big deal? I'm getting cheap on myself.
If I can just get the intercom to work right, and I think it's an internal problem, I can make some headway. I'll order another one (this one was used and sounds good for a few seconds, then sounds like shit) and keep on wiring.
Imagine a plate of spaghetti without sauce on it. Each end of a noodle is like the end of a wire that has to be hooked to something. Hook them all up and then make it look nice and tidy. Yeah right.
Oh well, if I get it done soon, then I can install the fuel system (Much more my kind of task) and then I'll be able to crank 'er up! Maybe next week. Then the first flight will only be a month or two away!

The reflections on the panel make it look funny, but it's real carbon fiber (well veneer anyway). this pic is missing a couple of switches, but sexy, no?

Nothing New

I wish I had something funny or profound to say, but it's just the drudgery of normalcy. Saturday was as perfect a day as you could ever want. High 60's, which for February, is almost unheard of. Clear skies, no wind.... Makes for a perfect flying day. Did I partake? Hell no! I was to involved with the wiring of the plane to take a chance of blowing off the whole day. Ran the errands I needed as the stores I went to close at noon on Saturday. Did I fly then? Nope.

Did I get enough done to justify the day? No. I don't know what's wrong with me, but I could have flown, and then stayed up later doing the wiring. I'm just intimidated by it all. So I scratch my head, and/or my ass and wonder what to do next. I'm slowly getting it, but days like Saturday just don't come very often. I thought I'd fly Sunday, but you couldn't see across the street for most of the day because of low flying clouds, fog and rain.

Summertime will bring crappy visibility. The picture was taken last summer coming home from work, and was a couple of miles away and you can barely see where I am going to land. Cooler weather makes for better visibility. I should have gone Saturday. Next time.

Drug Runner?

I sent a letter to the lawyer, and he emailed me back with more info on my dad's plane. He put an ad in Trade A Plane, and within a week, he got a call from someone in Mexico who was interested in buying the plane.
When it was learned that it had long range fuel tanks, he said he would take it (sight unseen). The lawyer went on a business trip and when he got back, his secretary said there were two Mexican gentlemen waiting in a motel and had been there for 3 days. (The secretary couldn't get hold of the lawyer for 3 days? WTF?)
The one gentleman was a pilot and the other was buying the plane for his son who was a traveling physician. The plane they had now need $50,000 worth of updates, so they were looking for another one.
After looking at the plane, they paid the lawyer $52,000 cash in 20 dollar bills. It took the lawyer, his partner and accountant several hours to open the duct tape cylinders with rolls of 20s and count them.
I guess doctors in Mexico are paid in cash with American 20 dollar bills. That's the way it is here isn't it?
The plane was never registered in Mexico, and not re-registered here.

I got the registration for my plane Saturday. It's official 806MB. Now if I can just get the wiring finished (what a pain), fuel system in and the cowling finished, I'll be ready to fly the dang thing.

I looked at paint chips to see the colors to paint it, and I found some really cool paint. It's called Kameleon Kolors by House of Kolor. They actually change colors! I thought that would be perfect until I found out it costs $2250 per gallon (retail)!! I can get it for $1900 a gallon, but that is definitely 10 times more than I planned to spend. I guess I'll go for more traditional paints and colors.

N222EE

The fate of my fathers plane will be unknown, and probably forever. It was owned by a moron lawyer in Salem Oregon for 6 years, and sold in 1999 to a "John Doe" in Arizona somewhere, or as the official documentation states, Nogales Mexico.
I will never be in a position to be able to afford even an older Cessna 182 like that, but it was the nicest specimen of a 1967 C182K in the country.
There isn't much you can do with an airplane to customize it, but dad had all the legal speed modifications available and a special FAA approved Camshaft in the engine. I rebuilt it for him one summer when I was off from school, and it would cruise at 172 mph and burn 9 gallons per hour. That's almost 20 mpg! I know it doesn't sound like much, but it would hold 4 people plus luggage, and better mpg than most SUVs get.
Although I couldn't have afforded it, a buddy of mine would have bought it and I could have flown it whenever and wherever I wanted.
Now I'm on hold with the FAA waiting to be able to reserve that number. I just registered my Sonex with 806MB. 806 kind of looks like Bob although I would have rather had 808, but it is taken, and MB (Mike Bravo in international alphabet) stands for Margarita Bob, since I make the best Margaritas ever. It took me years to perfect my recipe. Mike Bravo would have been a good name for the main character in a couple of detective novels my dad wrote but never published, so it fits. I might change someday to 222EE if I can, but maybe I'll get another plane someday.
I didn't sleep much last night.