Fun Stuff: I made it to the mother ship! Lots of photos!

A lengthy post which departs from the build anthology...

I happened to be in Portland Thursday with a few hours free, so why not go to Aurora, OR, KUAO?  I got a nice tour from Ken S. and enjoyed spending time with the venerated N214VA.  It was my first time seeing and sitting in the airplane I'm building.  Also got to chat briefly with Scott R. and meet Fedosia.  Very nice people.

(Please forgive my inarticulate descriptions - I'm not a machinist so this was an education for me.)  We got to see the huge hangar and all of the stock.  Being so far into the build, it seemed as though I could recognize nearly every part on the shelves.  Ken said they have 1.5 completions per day now, with more than 8000+ flying kits.  We got to see a -12 fuse kit being crated.  There was a stack of QB fuselages (many 7s, a few 8s and a couple of 10s).  A huge rack of shelves with many QB wings.  Another massive shelf with several Lycomings.  Then we went into the production area.  I did see several -14 fuse parts (no pics, sorry).  We saw several wing spars in process (they were just the web and flanges, with nothing riveted yet), including the WWII era machine that rivets them.  We saw the bending machines and the stacks of raw sheet stock.  We got to see the CNC turret punch in action as it churned out some fuselage bulkheads.  Then we headed to the airplane hangar.

It looked like the whole fleet was there recovering from AirVenture:  The -14A, -12, -10, -9A, -8, -7A, -6A.  This was the first time I'd ever seen in-person the airplane I'm building!  Ken let me have endless alone-time with the -14.  In fact, I spent nearly all my time going over every inch of it.  I did not see the TG version they're working on.  It's probably behind the door in the hangar that says "Absolutely no admittance".

I sat in the -14A, and compared to my friend's -9A, the plane is cavernous.  Wow!  Lots of space!  After an hour and fifteen minutes, I had to go so we could get to the next customer meeting that evening. 

On to the pics!  I asked for and obtained permission to take all of the pictures.  Sorry for the occasional blurry image.  I hadn't anticipated getting this opportunity so my image acquisition device was less than ideal.

Production Tour Photos

Click on the first image to see them in a larger size.  Then click through them.  Short descriptions are included on this page only if you hover your mouse over the thumbnails (the descriptions do not show in the larger image viewer).

N214VA Photos 

Click on the first image to see them in a larger size.  Then click through them.  Short descriptions are included on this page only if you hover your mouse over the thumbnails (the descriptions do not show in the larger image viewer).