Bringing It All Back Home

Bearhawk is in the truck.  Should reach home base today.

Ramps and Pulleys

Last few days have been spent making arrangements for the trip to Montana, and the inspection, disassembly, loading, and stowage of the aircraft once we get there.

Also convincing ourselves it's a good idea to cross the Monida pass in January in a 24-foot Budget truck.

Salt Lake Meetup

Don and I made our Bearhawk travel plans today, and will be meeting in Utah for the flight up to Helena on the 7th of January, in a Canadair regional jet.  I will be flying from LA to Salt Lake, and Don will be flying separately from the Varner Compound in an undisclosed location in the American Southwest.

From the airport in Montana's capitol, it's only 3 miles to the Budget truck location.  Then we'll use the truck for local transportation.

Just How Big is that Tin Truck?

Today at lunch I ran over to Budget with my 8' tape measure and measured a 24' rental truck (the same size truck is available in Helena, Montana).  The good news is that the Bearhawk should fit in the truck.  The bad news is that we still have to figure out how to get it up the ramp, which is too narrow for the airplane's main gear.

Project time ~ 0.8 hours.

What a Puny Plan

Yesterday: more illness, and a pre-dawn trip to the ER for Brandon. Turned out to be an ear infection. What I'm trying to say is no airplane work yesterday.

Today 0.2 hours of cleanup for floor paint. I'll hold off on buying paint until the day we'll use it.

Bearhawk transport concepts:

A) Fly to Montana, take off wings, stow plane in 24' Budget moving van. Drive home. Problem: doors reported to be 7' tall, while this Bearhawk is 7'3" (thanks to extra long landing gear. Need to get an actual door measurement at my local Budget lot.

B) Buy or rent a trailer.

C) Hire an airplane mover. $$$.

Storage

Don and his stuff, freshly moved out of storage (the stuff, not Don).

We've been planning the Bearhawk retrieval operation, and it's not going to be pretty.