Japan: No Go! Airplane: Go!

corey    Flying, Military, News, RV Project    

I’m a little bummed. Ok, maybe more than a little. I swear (I swear!) I put my name down for a 2 month tour in Okinawa, Japan. Somehow I got passed over (as did all but 2 Traditional Air National Guardsmen – what the heck!) and won’t be going on that trip.

Sigh.

But, I was worried about it because it falls right at the beginning and at the end of a school semester. This would have made it hard to go to school this summer and next fall (though I was willing to sacrafice half a year to go to japan for a couple months – I mean, come on!). I guess I don’t have to worry about that now.

But! Good news! Today submitted my order for the next two kits for my airplane kit. I ordered the slowbuild (non-preassembled) fuselage kit and the quickbuild (preassembled) wing kit, for a grand total of $16,113 and 50 cents. Yikes.

Thankfully, they only need a 25% deposit to start getting the kits together for me. I expect the fuselage to ship in about 3 months, while the wing kit will take at least 7 months if not 9 months – they have to send the unassembled kit overseas (to Czech Republic I think) to be assembled and then sent back. For an additional $4000 I think it’s a pretty good deal to save me a year’s worth of work.

I’m starting to think about what avionics I want in my plane and coming up with a basic mockup of the panel I want. I’m pretty sure I’ve settled on the GRT EFIS dual display system, which will couple with their EIS (which will be preprogrammed for a Subaru engine). I haven’t settled on much else (TruTrak autopilot or a EZ-Pilot autopilot?) but I think I have the basics.

Here’s one of the panels I made using epanelbuilder.com :

I was thinking of going with a large map display in the middle (like you see here), with something like the VistaNav system. But, instead, I think I will just get a Garmin GPS 396 – much cheaper and you can get XM Weather for it.

I was hoping to get a used Garmin GNS430 (which is a comm radio, gps, and moving map all in one) which can also get XM Weather, but to get XM you have to buy a $5000 add-on module! The price for the 396 with everything is only $3000, so that’s silly.

I’m keeping my eyes open for other used systems: Garmin SL30 (comm/nav radio), Garmin GTX327 (transponder), electronic fuel gauge, one of PMA’s audo panels, and a few other things. I know I don’t have to buy them now, but I might feel cheated if I let a good deal go!

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