RV-10 Empennage Kit Arrival

 

My RV-10 empennage kit has finally arrived! It was marked 'Assigned to Crating' on May 27th, 'Shipped' on June 9th and arrived at my local Old Dominion Freight terminal in San Jose, CA on June 13th... a 2 business day trip from Aurora, OR. I opted to go pick up the kit from the terminal myself as I live on a rather busy street, and there isn't a lot of room for an 18-wheeler to stop outside my house.

Old Dominion called me on the morning of June 13th to let me know the kit had arrived at the terminal, and I scheduled a pickup date of the very next day, June 14th... which also happened to be my birthday!!! 

I decided to rent a U-Haul 6'x12' trailer rather than a 15' truck because

1. I had a hitch and wiring hookup already attached to my Honda Pilot SUV for towing
2. It was significantly cheaper as there were no per mile costs for the trailer.

At UHaul with a 6'x12' trailer attached to my SUV...

...this thing was longer than I thought, mostly due to the length of the tow bar

From UHaul I drove directly to the Old Dominion terminal...

...and then back home with my empennage kit

...very close to home now, just around the corner

Transporting the kit from the trailer into my garage was easier than expected using a heavy duty dolly to push the large crate (~270lbs). The smaller, longer crate weighed only about 40lbs and I was able to carry that inside.

Empennage kit is finally in the airplane factory... aka my garage!

The next step was to open the crates and take out the parts in preparation for inventory. 

A ton of paper! These things are packed really well!

With the paper out, parts were beginning to show themselves.

With the bulk of the small parts taken out, only the skins were left.

The skins were held securely in place using some heavy duty duct tape. While this tape helped prevent damage to the skins during transport, taking the tape off resulted in some of the protective blue plastic being pulled off as well. While this is not a big deal in the long run (as the plastic will be pulled off as each component is constructed), it was frustrating trying to get the duct tape off the skins cleanly!!!

Finally all parts removed, and we are left with an empty crate.

Now I need to start inventorying and organizing all these parts...

...as well as all the hardware.

Inventorying the parts took almost 5 hours, and other than a few missing pieces of hardware and a single incorrect rib, everything is accounted for and there appears to be no shipping damage to any of the parts. Also, nothing is on back order, so I am ready to build!

I sent a note to Van's on the missing pieces. Hopefully they'll send those out to me soon.

Organization complete... skins and parts (organized by subkits) on shelves...

... and hardware in this storage cabinet I picked up online (that yellow sorting tray proved useful)

Overall I'm very happy to have received the kit after a long 8+ month wait. There were no issues in shipping via Old Dominion and the pickup process was smooth. 

Now I just have another sheet metal basics practice kit (that came with the empennage) and another trailing edge practice kit to complete before I start work on the real thing. Hope to get those knocked out in the next week or two.

Date: June 14 - June 16 2022

Unboxing and Inventory Time Taken: 6.5 hours