A customer's quest:  The ultimate A36

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Jim, our customer, purchased a project A36; although he has a team of skilled labor at his home-drone, he enlists the help of AVSTAR for many of the the refinements.  The aircraft arrived to his airport on a truck and Mike flew over to inspect it and help Jim develop a plan.

The fuselage was basically straight, well, except for some diagonal wrinkling on the belly.

   

Right wing had some pretty good outboard damage, and both wings were abused in transport.  A decision was made to find replacement wings, which Jim took care of.

   

So, 'pieces' started finding their way to our shop.  The customer removed engine, interior and instrument panel before the fuselage arrived.  We continued the disassembly process:  Pulled the gear motor and aux fuel pump, sent for overhaul.  We did the overhaul on the landing gear actuator and fuel selector.  While it was apart, we commenced a few sheet metal projects.  Cross-measurements were made and there was a definite off-set in the wing carry-through section; however, once the skins were removed, all of that relaxed out, leaving us with a few stringers to repair, then install new skins as required.

       

Among the smaller sheet metal projects was a replacement upper side skin on the fuselage (freight damage) and the obligatory nacelle work.  Also, we took the time to install nav-antenna doublers on the vertical stabilizer.

 

The fuselage then went back to Jim's crew for a variety of fuselage details, including paint removal and replacement.  They also removed landing gear components, stripped, inspected and painted to taste.  Then, Jim brought that over here for assembly and servicing;  All new felts, seals, scrapers and hardware, ready for installation.

 

A work in progress, stay tuned!