AHHH! 4.00 per gallon!

With the coming of spring, comes the warm weather, the BBQ's, T- shirts... and yes, $4.00 for a gallon of gas. And thats if they decide to have mercy on us. So I decided to start a new spring tradition. When the warm weather hits, I give my truck a vacation.
I sold my Honda CB750 motorcycle that I had had for a few years. And bought this little Yamaha XT250. The Old CB only got 30 mpg and didn't have any fenders and was loud and fast I had it basically for the cool factor. But, this little guy will get 60-70 mpg and I wont be tempted to go 120 anymore... I had no trouble selling the old CB. I had put allot of work into making it run well and look good. A young guy ended up buying it for the cool factor. Imagine that. So in the end I got a summer vehicle that will get 6 times better gas mileage than the ol' truck. Complete with fenders for those rainy days. And I must say, The little Yamaha still has a cool factor.

Meet 185CX

This week the we finished putting CX back together. Since the annual inspection was due at the end of the month. We went ahead and did the inspection now. It was allot easier to do since we had all the inspection panels off already and we were performing allot of the inspection items while we where putting the aircraft back together. To finish off the inspection we went through the wheels breaks and engine. Its been really to see this project coming to a close. Its been a long haul and Im glad to see it finished. Its been an amazing opportunity to use what we have learned on a real aircraft.

Painting the red stripes was a real challenge. The hardest part was Lying out the lines. When we got the airplane the stripes weren't strait. So when we laid out the lines we had to start from scratch to make sure they all looked good. Another problem we had, is the number stencil we bought. They only sent us the negative side, so we used it as a guide and had to fill in all the numbers with tape. It was really time consuming. All the lines ended coming out looking really good. and we ended up using every second of the time we where allot to use the booth.
Next are just a few pictures of the red paint going on and the assembly at the main hanger.




We fueled the airplane to perform the final weight and balance. First thing Monday well get the RTS (test Flight) done, and kick this bird out the door.

Monday we are starting our avionics classes, and Im glad to be starting something new.