On again, off again

Well, we've been working hard at getting some good visual progress on N4790U. There is a lot that happens sort of "behind the scenes" that you just don't see until something big gets installed or something like that. Nate K has been working hard to get the landing gear installed, but not at the expense of forgetting something or not doing it right. He's just meticulous in his work ethic, which is always a good thing when you're going back together with a project like this. He did finally get the gear on this week, without too many hitches along the way. I finished the LH wing tip fuel tank installation, stall fence installation, and vortex generator installation. I moved on to the RH wing to do those three things and came across a lot of corrosion in the wing tip and aileron trailing edge area, so I'm going to be replacing some pieces of skin. Liz has been doing all sorts of things...sometimes I feel bad for giving her jobs to do that just feel meaningless. However meaningless they feel, though, they are still important to the job and thus for the ministry of AIM AIR. She did have hiccup in her work, though, when the pressure washer broke and she had to figure out how to fix it. We've all moved off of the project, though, with Nate K and Liz working on a Check 2 inspection on 5Y-SIL, the U206G from Loki. N827DG came back from Uganda yesterday with a few minor squawks, so I've been working on those today. Praise the Lord it's nothing big, and the airplane has been doing lots of good, hard work over in Uganda and the Congo with Ron Pontier as the pilot.

Anyways, here's some pictures of the week so far...



Nate K with a gear leg in place! As of today, it has all three legs and sneakers to run in...

A stall fence installed. Notice the lack of work space...

Stall fence.

Liz, resident pressure washer mechanic...just goes to show that as a missionary aviator, you never know what you'll be called to fix. She's done a great job here at AIM AIR.

Vortex generators installed.

Liz posing with the VGs she helped me install.

Something old, something new...

Well, this week we got some good things accomplished, but also didn't get as much done as we were hoping. Isn't that always the case, though?! Nate K. got the nose gear installed, even after running into some holdup just about everyday. Liz did some good cleaning of part and got the new tie down installed in the tail with its specially fabricated doubler. Nice job, Liz. I spent the week learning how to install the Flint wing tip fuel tanks and the associated pumps, plumbing, etc. If you remember back to N827DG, Caleb and Brandon did those; well, Caleb is in Sudan for who knows how long and Brandon is back living in the States. So, I'm doing it this time around, although I didn't get any pictures of that...maybe next week. Anyways, we're working hard and trying to keep moving forward. We're hoping this next week to finish installation of the main landing gear, the wing tip tanks, and to begin starting get the wings and the flight controls ready for paint.

We'll see how it goes...in the mean time, here's some pictures.



Nate K. getting the nose gear ready to install. This plane was being used in Florida as basically a corporate taxi (carried the boss men of a company). It had the standard Cessna nose gear which includes a standard nose fork and wheel assembly. At AIM AIR, we remove those and install a heavy duty nose fork and a bigger, stronger wheel assembly. This is due to the nature of our flying into very unimproved airstrips.

Here's Ryan Williams (left) hoisting the nose gear into position while Nate K. (right, the tan pant legs) is installing the bolts to hold it in place.

And here it is, a newly installed nose gear assembly, minus the wheel assembly. Notice the nice big access panel made possible through MAF's engineering department.

Ryan giving some instruction to Liz on how to install the new tail tie down. They both went to LeTourneau University in Texas. Pray for Liz as she finishes her ministry here at AIM AIR in the next few weeks and heads back to the States and eventually Alaska, where she wants to pursue a pilot career. I think we might have scared the mechanic out of her. :-)

And here I am helping Liz rivet the doubler in place. Actually, there's the tie down sitting on top of the tail.

N4790U work...moving ahead and moving back.

I'm sorry about the lack of pictures and info for the past couple weeks or so. My parents and sister are back to the States, so now I'm back to work. They had a great time and are looking forward to their visit back to Kenya.

Anyway, we've done a lot of work in the past couple weeks and we've also had more work generated for us unintentionally. Besides the normal progress, we found a couple cracks in the nose access tunnel which required some repairs. Also, one of the wings was damaged when some of the guys in the shop tried to move it. The wing was dropped on its tip and a very large crack (more like a gash) was the result. Oh, well. Nothing we can't fix.

We're hoping to have the gear all installed by the end of the week and I'm going to get going on the wing tip fuel tanks once I finish the repair to the tip. David Marwa of Radio Base has been doing awesome getting the airframe wiring installed. Liz...well, she's hating work these days because she's doing paint stripping. Sorry, Liz. Someone's gotta do it. :)

So here's some pictures of the last few days/weeks.


New Monarch fuel caps installed.

Here's the nice crack/gash/wound in the tip of the left wing. Luckily it didn't damage the Horton leading edge cuff.

David Marwa measuring for some wire lengths.

The instrument panel looking good. Already have circuit breakers and engine controls in. Nice!

Looks like a bunch of spaghetti coming out the front. That's good, though!

This is David's temporary office space...right next to the plane.

Freshly assembled and painted landing gear waiting for installation.

Liz doing her paint stripping work.

Wait, haven't we seen this picture before? If you look back in the archives, you'll find a similar picture of N827DG with Josh crammed into the nose tunnel.


Nate Killoren doing the repair on the cracks in the nose tunnel. I figured this was a good advert for SIM. Praise the Lord for mission organizations that can successfully work together.

This past week...

Here's a few pictures from this past week of work on N4790U. We have been slowly moved back to the project, so we're trying to get as much work done before we get yanked for something else again. The main push has been to get interior structure work done so that Radio Base can send David down to do his awesome work on avionics wiring and things of that nature. He finally was able to start doing some of that this week, and we've moved to some other things, like landing gear and wings.

Anyway, I'm going to be gone for about a week while my parents and sister are here, so Nate K. and Liz will be working on the project and then hopefully some of the other guys in the shop can help, too. Caleb is up north for a few weeks vacation (who else do you know who takes vacation there?!?). Pray that they can get a lot accomplished and that my vacation time with my family is good.

Here's the pictures!!

Nate 1 and Nate 2 sportin' the onesies.

Wearing new coveralls to do paint prep work.

Liz prepping a main gear leg for paint.

Hey, it's not chai time!! Back to work!

Stamping out the holes in the instrument panel...if you look back into the archives, you'll find a very similar picture when we were doing 7DG...except it was with Brandon Waggoner.

Contemplating the new additions to the panel...new engine control cables...what next?!