Fuselage Kit Arrival and Inventory

A long journey...

My fuselage kit was ordered on 31st May 2021, and I got the box into the shed on 26 June 2022 - for a total duration of 1 year and 26 days! 

This timeframe wasn't all Van's delays of course - the box had quite a journey! It left Van's on 4th Nov 21 for the Zenith Aircraft Factory, in Mexico, Missouri. So actually, the timeframe for the order was only 5 months and 4 days, which given the current circumstances was excellent service!

The plan was for my box to be included in a container leaving from Zenith destined for the Swish Projects hangar in Bullengarook, just outside of Gisborne in Victoria (about a 45 min drive from my place). It was to travel with a bunch of Zenith aircraft and engines, a great saving in shipping costs for me! My box therefore had to wait until all the backordered kits from Zenith were ready to ship, and also for a container to be sourced in the US for packing it all into (which proved to be quite a task!). Once the container was found and packed, they couldn't find a truck and driver to take it across the US to the port! Logistics in 2022 - no good. 

It ended up sitting there for about 4 months until around the start of April 2022, then finally left the states in a container out of Long Beach, CA on the 7th April. 

The container travelled on the COSCO NETHELANDS and got unloaded in Kaoshung, Taiwan. It then sat there for a few more weeks, finally getting loaded onto the OOCL SHANGHAI destined for Melbourne. 

There was a lot of nervous watching of the ship tracking websites until finally, on the 7th June, it appeared off the Victorian coast. 

It took another couple of weeks to get off loaded from the ship and clear customs, and for a side loading truck to be found to get it up to the Swish projects hangar. Once it had arrived, James was very kind in putting it into his stock trailer for me, and i was finally able to go up and retrieve it on the 23rd June and bring it back home - well, sort of! We had just had a new driveway poured, so i wasn't actually able to get it into the shed!!! Luckily, our very kind neighbour let me unload it into their garage for a couple of days. 

The box at the Swish Projects hangar

In good company with it's Zenith friends

James is a great bloke - not only saved me a fortune, but leant me his trailer!

Not something the neighbour usually has in their front yard.

So close to being home - just have to wait for the driveway sealant to dry!

Finally, on the 26th June we were able to wheel it down the street and get it into the shed.

Let the Inventory Begin!

I had planned to leave the inventory until i had finished the wingtips - yeah right!!! Maybe i'll just open the box and have a peak. Or unwrap one or two things... actually i did the whole inventory! 

All was good - nothing was even remotely scratched. Everything was in great condition. There were a few missing hardware items, but that's it! I've emailed Van's to get the additional items posted to me, and I will also ask for the updated canopy gas springs, and the remote canopy release kit items, as these were both released after my order had shipped. 

Very nicely packed.

That's a BIG hardware bag!

This blew me away.

I've found the most important bit - will start with this, and just start adding bits around it until the aeroplane is done!

On the left is the smallest rivet so far in the kit - an AD3 size skin rivet. On the right is the largest - an AD6 rivet used to fill some tooling holes in the fuel tank ribs. In the middle is the tiniest rivet i've ever seen - an AD2 size used to hold on some covers for the canopy hinge: i assume they are meant to break away if the canopy is released in flight. 

Too cold to do hardware inventory in the shed.

BEAUTIFUL!

This is a complete fuselage kit (minus hardware) - all i have to do is put it together!

and this is the paper it was packed in! 

What else would you have me do with a giant pile of paper?? This was the obvious choice.