The boat that was supposed to pick it up, didn’t. again. this is the fourth time this has happened. .. end transmission…
Author: striker (Page 1 of 2)
My container is still on the dock in Hamburg. According to the shipping itinerary it was supposed to be picked up yesterday by the Al Safat. But for whatever reason it was not. So now it just sits on the dock for another two weeks. Until another ship is ‘supposed’ to pick it up. ( This is the fourth time is type of delay has happened, albeit at other ports. ) and sadly the journey is only half done. So it is impossible to tell how many more delays there will be. There is no way to determine when it might even approximately be delivered. I have found this lack of predictability very challenging when trying to schedule and plan aircraft building and normal life things in the future.
So I guess my advice would be to any future kit purchasers…
- (this section has been rewritten a lot)
- get enough money so the $100k for the kit isn’t significant. Send them the funds. forget about it. and then someday a year later you’ll receive a surprise gift from yourself.
- send them the funds. Get drunk enough that you don’t remember doing it. some day a long time later wake up to a truck with a container backing down your drive way.
- send them the funds. get amnesia, in the movies this typically involves getting hit by a car, lighting, drowning… I have a hard time recommending this path. and someday you’ll wake up to a pile of aluminum and instructions in your front yard. Just start on page one.
… … …
Because if you can’t do some version of the above. and you check the tracking status of your container every 5 minutes for half a year, like I do. You will slowly and certainly make yourself go insane.
My Sling TSI, after sitting at the port of Hamburg for two weeks, has left the port and is starting its journey across the Atlantic. My kit is in a container on the ship Al Safat. I was able to get a picture of it leaving the port. It should be at my port in Virginia in mid March.
The coolest thing !!
I do have a hangar. It is currently housing the Smoke House Pilots ( https://www.facebook.com/groups/1493756143990780 ) plane , that is my old plane (sold my plane to afford this venture ) that is currently in my hangar. I will be building most of the Sling TSI in my shop, at my home. For the final stages, I will be finishing the plane at the hangar.
Sooo, to that end, I have acquired a way to keep the plane preheated during the winter. https://shop.hangarbot.com/ With the Cirrus that I currently have/use, we always preheat the plane during the winter when its below 40f. And to preheat properly, it takes a little bit. Getting to the hangar 2 hours before you wanna fly is a pain. So I got Hangarbot. It allows me to start the engine preheater before we arrive at the hangar !!! sweetttt !!! I was amazed at how easy this was to setup. It comes with a built in cellular connection that you don’t have to mess with. Just download the app, and log in… and boom it works. Amazing. Can’t recommend this product enough. Surprisingly easy ! Its suppose to be just for engine preheating… But I can’t help but to think about other things I can connect the outlet to.
Here are some pictures of my workshop. I made my modified EAA table. Its 3′ wide and 8′ long. I also put lockable casters on the bottom so I can move it.
DRDT-2 ! As you can tell from the pictures, for my dimpler I did not create a separate stand. I created two little blocks at the same height as the drdt-2. This should allow me to slide things through the dimpler while keeping them level and supported.
Also pictured is the wing holder on casters.
For the fun part… The ship that will be bringing my Sling TSI from Hamburg is pictured below. It is a picture of the ship in Rotterdam from a webcam, 3 days before its suppose to pick up my container in Hamburg. The previous ship dropped it off in Hamburg and this ship is suppose to pick it up ( if the Ukraine war doesn’t delay it ) take it across the Atlantic, to New York, then to Norfolk.
current approx eta 3 week in march
By the time I get my Sling TSI aircraft kit, it will have spent half a year on the water being shipped…. Wow.
So what is one to do while waiting ?
Workshop preparation, Sure.
Watching Evan’s sling build videos, of course.
Stalking shipping container ships online, absolutely.
To that end, I tracked my container and its ship to the Port of Rotterdam. And as it turns out, the port of Rotterdam has a lot of webcams… Surely you can see where this is going. Somewhere in the circle below is my container.
Received a call from Jean and Barry, just minutes ago… My plane is floating. It is on a cargo ship, on its way here. Moving at an incredible speed of 7k. So probably another month since it has to stop in a port in Germany first before it crosses the Atlantic to the U.S.
Time to start making my EA1000 table.
I hope the title doesn’t get anyone’s hopes up. I still have not received any shipping updates since the erroneous update a month ago stating mine had already shipped. And now the airplane factory says they will be closed from today, dec 15 until jan 3rd. ( understandable so, but wow. I wish I could take off 3 weeks for christmas) So I won’t be getting any new information anytime soon.
I want to share information that I researched about air freight. Instead of the standard two month long shipping by sea option. I looked into shipping , ( seems like the wrong word when a ship isn’t involved), it by air freight. Air freight would get it to me in 1 week versus 2 months (if I’m lucky) by water. Barry from Torrance sent me the dimensions of the crates that would need to be shipped for the quickbuild,
One box: 45 – 50kg (1581mm x 761mm x 201mm)
Second box: 200 – 220kg (4850 x 1600 x 700mm)
Third box: 220 – 250kg (6000 x 1400 x 1300mm)
Fourth box: 65 – 75 kg (1261 x 1171 x 681mm)
Per DHL this would cost me $20,0000(usd) wow
Per R&L carriers this would cost me $27,000(usd) really wow !
Soooo,,, despite my complete and total lack of patience… Standard shipping it is. I do believe air freight for a non-quickbuild with much smaller boxes would be much cheaper.
Other random information that I acquired… A shipping container ship can go from the tip of africa to the east coast of the usa in 15-20 days. But most do not. The boat that my container will be on, will most likely go up the coast of africa stop several times along the coast of europe, stop in germany then cross the atlantic. Then it works its way down the east coast from port to port………Soo…. its gonna be awhile, months.
My shipment has been delayed… Turns out the pictures that I received and posted were not of my plane. Despite having paper taped to them with my name.. ??..??.. Apparently that plane is going to some other lucky person. I asked the status of my shipment and was told that mine will be ready this week and put into containers next week and sent to the shipper… And with the given global shipping problems currently happening…. If I am very lucky my container full of plane parts will be on the water this year. (that only being 4 more weeks) So that means it will take me about 3 weeks longer to get it than I previously expected. I understand these things happen, so no biggie. I just hope there are no more delays and when the shipment arrives all the parts are actually all here.
Okay, the interesting stuff,,, in the latest release of the TSI POH they subtlety slipped in a new approved propeller manufacture. They are still using airmaster for the controller and the hub but now they approve of a new propeller from Sensenich. Don’t bother looking for it on their website. I am told it is a proprietary version specifically for the TSI.
Second interesting thing,,, as I found on FB, an individual in New Zealand is working with BRS to fit a BRS chute to the TSI. Apparently, it is significantly smaller and about 7 lbs less. The exact price is still up in the air (pun intended) but all the other aspects sound good to me.
Thirdly, here is another idea that I stole from FB. To create a POH. Simply download the pdf and send it to www.print-my-pdf.com and they sent me a printed and binded POH. for cheap… like $15. Literally the whole process took less than 10 minutes. I know that I am jumping the gun a little bit but I was bored.
I am now at the stage of trying to coordinate the logistics of the many purchases included in building your own plane. So far I have ordered the complete quickbuild kit. It should be on the boat any day now. My goal, albeit optimistic(very), is to complete the build in 6 months from when it arrives. Stop laughing. Gotta have goals. So to that end, I need to start ordering the other aspects. Those being,
the engine, propeller and firewall forward kit
the avionics
random parts such as lights
and specialty tools
One of many of the problems trying to plan for this is of course, lead times. Right now there are still covid delays and now there are sea shipping delays. Not even to mention coordinating the massive financial aspect. Full disclosure, the financial aspect, includes timing selling my existing Cirrus sr22 at the correct moment in order to put the proceedings into the new build but minimize my time without a plane.
So to that end, last week, I put my order into the panel builders. And this week I am putting my order in for the engine. I am told that the biggest delay right now is the propeller from New Zealand and that will be 25 weeks. Can’t say I like putting that much money out and not getting something in return for HALF a year !
So,,, wish me luck.