Wing Kit Arrived!

Yesterday was a big day with the long awaited (9 months since original deposit) of my RV-15 Wing Kit (except for the spars, but they should arrive in about a month or so.)  Van's shipped via a company named ABF.  ABF called me the other day and set up a delivery for Friday May 8th.  Then the status page for the order said May 11th.  I called and they confirmed the 11th.  I pointed out they hadn't notified me about the change, and that the 11th wouldn't work for me.  They said 'OK' and said they'd drop it off on the 8th.  no apologies or anything.  Weird. 

OK, so the delivery window was from 8am to 8pm.  Because I never procrastinate, the garage was completely cleaned and organized and ready for the deliver.  Not.  So at 8am I check the status page (loading) and got to work in the garage.   By noon, I had converted a garage w/ nearly 3 years of cruft & debris into an acceptable and clean workshop.  

Clean & Ready Workshop

Around 1pm, the status page finally said 'out for delivery' and I started to trust them that they would deliver and not make me wait until next week.   Around 4:30, the truck showed up.  The driver cursed that they didn't give him the right equipment to unload it properly so I enlisted my neighbor, Kevin, and his friend and the 4 of us eventually manhandled the crates into the workshop.

Wing kit boxes in the workshop

main box, before opening

Main box

I tackled the main box first. I had to drive out to the hangar to get a Dremel tool to cut the metal straps and grabbed my drill press, band saw, grinder and a bunch of loose/small tools.  I had put off getting tools until the garage had been cleaned and converted in order to not add to the clutter and further drive myself crazy.  I spent about 2 hrs excavating a phenomenal amount of crushed brown wrapping paper out of the box to get to the result you see above.  I'll need to figure out how to package the paper so it can be picked up for recycling, and then I'll tackle the inventory.  BTW, I have 30 days to report any discrepancies for free remediation & shipping.