What a great Friday. First I got an excellent haircut, then the fine folks at Culvers’ offered me a senior discount on my Double Butterburger Value Basket, then I got an email from Poplar Grove: the engines are built, the first one has passed testing, the second one is being tested on Monday, and they should ship to Baker Aviation on Wednesday.
I mean, just look at the majesty of this fully-armed and operational battlestation 520-cubic-inch engine:
Of course, every silver lining has a cloud; in this case, naturally Poplar Grove expects to be paid. There’s plenty of money in the escrow account to cover this, but because of various arcane accounting practices inflicted on me by the bank, and because no one budgeted for the $2,400 cost of shipping these big hunks of metal back and forth, some of that money has to be held back until the airplane is 100% assembled and flyable. That means that I’m paying the shop a couple of AMUs out of pocket. The good news here is that leaves me with a couple of AMUs of “extra” money (ahahahahahahahahahahaha, as if that existed in aviation) available to pay for the installation.
So, assuming everything goes well with the #2 engine’s test run and shipping, Curtis’ shop should have the new engines by Labor Day. Then it’s just a question of how long it takes them to (carefully and patiently) reinstall them. Things are looking up!
(Also, that Double Butterburger was 🔥)
Paul's Down-Home Page 