EAA Sport Aviation

HANDS ON
them in the right column. That becomes
your shopping list.

For a couple of days, keep that steno pad literally attached to your hip while you visualize your way through the project. If you have an iPad, laptop, or something similar, that works even better because you can easily reorganize and pri-oritize the information by creating a two-column chart in MS Word and cutting and pasting each building task. Or use an Excel spreadsheet.

A computer works, too, but that means you can only do this note-making while sitting in front of your computer; it’s better if you can continue the process throughout the day. Or, you can make hand notes and transfer them to the computer in the evenings.

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.

Now, find someplace where people won’t bother you and you can do some serious visualizing. The bathroom is ideal. Wipe everything out of your mind but the airplane. Now, project the image of the parts to be built or assembled on the theater in your mind. Mentally walk through each process that will be involved. If it’s a quick-build kit, visualize the wing. Now visualize everything that has to be done to the wing. Think your way through every single step. If you’re building a rag-and-tube fuselage, visualize installing each tube, each fitting, each bushing. Go through each major component the same way.

While you’re mentally seeing your hands doing the work, be writing that operation down. Then break the operations down into half-hour chunks. How much can you get done in 30 minutes? Be realistic. If you get too optimistic and you don’t meet your half-hour goals, the concept won’t work. You may need two, three, or more half-hour periods to accomplish a given task, but don’t put that down as an hour and a half. Put it down as three separate half-hour work sessions to be checked off as they’re finished.

When you’re not actively adding tasks to the list, keep it in mind and keep an index card/pad and a pen in your pocket to capture unexpected epiphanies “Wow, I forgot I have to put an Adel clamp there…” Write it on the card and add it to the half-hour action list, when you get the chance. This is where an iPad, or such, really helps.

During the day, when you’re away from home, you can order the parts and supplies for coming work sessions. Smartphones and the Internet have made building airplanes 1,000 percent easier, and the ability to shop online is one of the biggest contributions.

Print the checklist, put it on a clipboard, and hang it on the shop wall where you can’t miss it. As you finish a line item, cross it off. It’ll be a way of graphically showing progress and will make it obvious that you are, indeed, making progress. Also, if you come up with something you forgot to list, you can add it and then put it in the com-puter/iPad later.

Making up the list not only forces
organization and mental planning on us
but also makes us visualize every step of
what we have to do. We see ourselves
making the part or doing the process, so
when we finally get out into the shop, it’s
as if we’ve done this before. Better yet,
every time we step into the shop we’ll
have a definite goal in mind and a time
frame in which to accomplish it. We’ll be
light-years more efficient. We can do this
kind of virtual building anywhere. While
driving to work, visualize ways of setting
up the fuselage centerline, ways of orga-
nizing the shop, ways of…
The value of mentally going through the
motions can’t be overestimated. When we
walk into the shop with both a plan and
mental familiarity with what has to be done,
we look like wizards because there’s so
much less wasted motion; we will routinely
accomplish so much more in less time.

Every time we step into
the shop we’ll have a
definite goal in mind.

The next time you hear yourself saying “I don’t have enough time,” think about Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo: They had the same 24-hour days that we have. Yet they performed miracles. And I’m betting they still spent their fair share of time out with the boys. I think their secret is that they knew how to make their time efficient and their projects were constantly churning around inside their heads. So, when they picked up a brush or chisel, they’d already made those strokes in their mind’s eye a dozen times. That’s something we can borrow from the masters and apply directly to our airplanes. At the core of it, however, is the necessity to look at our lives and decide where there are seemingly inconsequential bits of time that can be put to good use.

All of us waste more time than we think we do. In fact, if we had used the tiny pieces of free time left to us by life, most of us would already be flying an airplane that has our name on the data plate.

Budd Davisson is an aeronautical engineer, has flown more than 300 different types, published four books, and more than 4,000 articles. He is editor-in-chief of Flight Journal magazine and a flight instructor primarily in Pitts/ tailwheel aircraft. Visit him on www.AirBum.com.