Sunday, June 13, 2021

NOS fuel panel

 Got my NOS (new old stock) fuel panel installed.  The wood panel just didn't jive with my new sidewalls, so I found these brand new replacements on eBay.  I think it looks great now.  Here is the before and after:





Saturday, June 5, 2021

Finally

 I finally rescued my plane from the interior shop at Lincoln...  5+ months for carpets, sidewalls, sound proofing and leather wrapping the yokes.  I heard every excuse in the book but I'm mostly happy with the end result.  Especially the sound proofing, the plane is definitely noticeably quieter.  I don't think they put the headliner back up correctly because it has some waves in it now, but I wasn't going to nitpick about anything I just wanted the damn birdy back so I paid the bill and got out of there.  I was worried the battery would be dead but the old girl fired right up.  I haven't gone more than 3 weeks without flying her since I bought it, so sitting for 5 months is far, far from ideal.  I didn't even get the seats done and now they're pretty mismatched.  I can do that later, they're still comfy.  What's I had done looks great though, and I'm happy with the result.  I think it was a matter of over promising, being understaffed, covid, yada yada... and far from cheap.  End of month she goes for annual too, so yet more downtime coming up.  Good to have lots of airplane options!





The Aircon control installed here is epic.  Love the way this turned out.  The armrest I found new old stock from Arrel aircraft and it's awesome, like new with a working little hinge door.  The wood panel pieces on the fuel panel don't match anymore so I found some new old stock in matte black on eBay for a reasonable price.  Will replace those soon.  



They did a nice job wrapping the window frames and repair the front window pillars which were in bad shape.  They came out awesome and I know that was a ton of work. 



Really happy with the carpet.  It's lush Italian wool and they did a really nice job with it and the cutouts for the seat rails.  The sidewalls look great in the color of a baseball mitt which lends to the vintage look.  The seats just need to match now.



Refurbished the airstair door and it looks really nice and vintage.  Super happy with the the modern/vintage look for the whole plane now.  I just need to do the seats to complete the look.