Interior Update

Bad news and good news... mostly good news. Good news first? The good news is that I got new photos from Advantage and a job update. From Matthew at Advantage:

I'm attaching some photos to this email, along with more on a second email following it. The first set will be a seat, panels, and pre-insulation. The second will be the insulation installed. Just as before, they'll be in large format, and probably need to be saved before viewed. Also, please let me know if they don't show up properly. I tried to include a few photos of materials and panels along with the insulation photos.

Finally some photos!  I'm attaching them below.  Here is the bad news...

Thank you for the heads up that Jay Shearer is coming, and that is fine anytime. We will try to get done by then, but are projecting as late as the 8th. To be on the safe side, I wouldn't count on it being complete by the 1st.

Doh!  That's bad news because if you've been following my posts you know the annual expires Feb 1. I delivered the plane there on Dec 16th with an estimate of 3-4 weeks to complete. Long story short, the job really didn't start until early Jan and now looks like 5 weeks, so my annual will expire before I can fly it back. I really wanted to fly it back here for the annual, and I really don't want to have to have it ferried across the country because I want to do the flight... on a special flight permit you can only have required crew (1 pilot) and since I don't have the insurance requirements for solo met yet, it can't be me. So I'm looking in to having the annual done out there, which has it's own risks and likely yet more delays.

I spent some time on the phone with Advantage today and tried to coax them into moving it along faster.  They are going to really try to get it completed before the end of the month, but at this point I'm not optimistic.  On the one hand I'd love to get the plane home before Feb due to the annual issue, but on the other hand I want a nice interior and not a rush job.  At least this quote made me feel better:

I also wanted to say, that although the interior was outdated (and the new leather interior is going to look great), your airplane seems to be in great condition, and looks like it was very well-taken care of before. It is super-clean behind all of the panels and framework.

Well that's good news!

Here are some shots:

That's the super soundproofing insulation, which is pretty much where they're at with the job.  They had to cut each piece and place it behind the wiring and tubes.  They are also checking tubes for cracked or brittle old plastic.  As mentioned above, A&P Jay Shearer is going over to look over the plane and perform the heater inspection AD tomorrow.  It will be good to have him look at everything while it's all exposed, maybe I can even have him perform part of the annual this way?

Also covering the roof with insulation.

 

Here is one of the seats stripped.  I'm not really sure if that is old foam or the new foam.  I'm guessing old.