The plane goes home.

I've reached the point where I need to move the project to the hangar. I really can't get it up on its landing gear until the engine mount is attached (for the nose wheel), and I can't put the engine mount with the room I have left in the garage. Because of the side steps, though, I couldn't just load it on a flatbed. My brother-in-law had the solution when he was out a few months ago -- get some hay. D'oh!

So I bought four bales of straw and the side steps straddled it on the back of a trailer that RV-10 builder David Maib offered up.

Let's get to the pictures.

First, I pretty much stripped everything back, back window removed, top skin removed etc. Back down to "canoe" state:



Insert straw bales through Slot A. Attach airplane to Slot B:



The plan, obviously, was to have someone -- in this case my friend, Warren Starkebaum, who took these pictures, by the way -- drive behind the trailer to keep it from being rear-ended.



Then we strapped N614EF down...




Stuck on a rinky-drink warning flag (Thanks, Waste Management!). Oh, yes, this was the first day above 32 in weeks. Fortunately, it was still early enough in the day that there wasn't any slop on the road to kick salt and schmootz up.




And away we go! A 9-mile drive to South St. Paul's Fleming Field.



Fortunately, I was able to take the back road off the bluff onto I-494/I-694, so that we only need to be on the interstate just to get over the Wakota Bridge over the Mississippi River.




And home..



Because the snow on the roof is drip... drip... dripping down...it's solid ice in front of the hangar door. But the hangar is big enough that David was able to drive right in, we lifted off onto the sawhorses, put a tarp over it and called it a day except for vacuuming all the straw out of my wife's car.



Today I bought a Sears rolling tool chest to start organizing the tools and begin getting work done out at the hangar. It might actually, at this point, be better having it 9 miles from the house. I won't have as many distractions (i.e. TV) on those occasions when I start working. Of course, with 5 degree temps returning this week, there's the "heat" problem.