Experimenter

May 2013

Experimenter is a magazine created by EAA for people who build airplanes. We will report on amateur-built aircraft as well as ultralights and other light aircraft.

Issue link: http://experimenter.epubxp.com/i/126719

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I f I C a n D o T hi s As simple as it sounds, then, that's what I should have been afraid of all along: impatience. Impatience led me to use the wrong tools. Impatience made me do sloppy work. And in this case, impatience also caused me to quit just because of a couple of missing parts. There was a third lesson, one that I'd written about in an earlier column, and that was that I remembered my resources. About a week after I'd given up, I sent an email to the company that built the kit, and within a few hours, got the following response: The following Saturday, I was back to work on our staff build, beginning to assemble the firewall on our Zenith CH 750. I couldn't help but notice the contrast: On the Zenith build, we're spoiled to be able to work with no deadlines in a giant hangar with a ridiculous amount of space, plenty of light and heat, and an inexhaustible supply of expertise and support from colleagues and other experienced builders. In addition, we have access to every tool we could possibly need. Building the CH 750 is consistently enjoyable, and I'm extremely proud of the progress that all of us, myself included, have made so far. Impatience, thankfully, has never even entered into it, and if it does, I just have to remember the lessons I learned from da Vinci, by way of a toy bird. "I will send you some replacement parts. Thank you for calling it to my attention". By the way, I said that the ornithopter build had reinforced "a few" lessons, but I've only listed two so far. As for the ornithopter, I'm still not proud of how it looks, at least up close, but it flies beautifully. With that single e-mail, the "crisis" that caused me to quit and stomp away from my project like someone who was most definitely not "and up" just evaporated. The replacement parts showed up two days later, and I was able to fit them and finish my little Renaissance flying machine with no further drama. If this, like the others, seems like a ridiculously simple lesson, a common-sense reminder to ask for help when you need it, that's because it is. But sometimes it's the simplest lessons that need the strongest reinforcement. Te fuselage nearing the point of "Hey, this kinda looks like an airplane" stage. 48 Vol.2 No.5 / May 2013 Photography by Jennifer Bowen

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