EAA Sport Aviation

While a few people actually don’t have the time, many more who are saying they don’t have the time to build an airplane do so because they are buying into one of the leading misconceptions about long-term projects in general: they think they need entire days, or even entire weekends, to build an airplane when we don’t.

CHIPPING AWAY

It’s a given that long periods of free time are definitely hard to come by for most folks. However, regardless of how busy we are, there are always little time-bytes where we’re doing something that’s not necessary; those few precious minutes could be aimed at an airplane project. An excellent example is the slow half-hour that usually exists between arriving home from work and just before dinner is served. Another is the dinner-is-over-dishes-are-done-family-TV-starts-in-a-half-hour dead spot. And do we really need to watch that NCIS rerun again?

All sorts of little, often unobserved,
dead spots exist in everyone’s life, and by
doing something with them we’ll get that
airplane built. It’s not unlike trying to fit
just one more book into what appears to
be an already-full bookshelf. We usually
find that by straightening up all the other
books that we have a lot more space than
we thought possible. Life is pretty much
the same way. And there are all sorts of

Not “having” the time and
not being willing to “take”
the time are two entirely
different things.
little time-saving tricks that can lead any-
one to the end of the runway in their
ready-to-fly project.

Case in point: I once put a stopwatch to
a tubing fuselage I was building (a replica
Howard Pete racer) and timed how long it
took to do specific operations. I found that I
could routinely cut, fit, and tack a vertical
tube into place in 16 to 17 minutes. A diago-
nal would take 20 minutes. From that point
on, when I was engrossed in a TV program
that I felt compelled to watch, as soon as a
commercial came on (this was pre-TiVo),
I’d dash out into the shop and cut/grind/
file for a couple of minutes. Then I started
rolling out of bed a half-hour earlier and
found I could easily get one tube in place
before I even brushed my teeth. In short
order, just using the momentary down-
times, I was getting two, sometimes three,
tubes a day into place, yet it felt as if the
project hadn’t intruded on my day at all. I
was happy. The family was happy. The air-
plane was happy.

MAKE A LIST

Get a steno pad to be used for collecting your thoughts. It has a line vertically down the middle of the page dividing it in half. Label the left column TO DO. The right is TO GET. As you’re writing down things to be done, you’ll remember what parts, hardware, supplies, etc. you’ll need. Jot