Feb 11, 2003 - I got my QB wings and fuselage yesterday. It was about 4-6 weeks earlier than expected. The shipping cost about $1500 to NH. Because I live way out in the woods on a narrow road, I had the 2 big boxes delivered to an auto repair business out on the main state road. Many thanks to Jeff and Bucky at Straightaway Auto for their help and cooperation! It was quite a challenge just getting the fuselage off the truck, as it weighs 880 pounds and there was no way to get a forklift under it from the end. Bucky, Jeff, the Roadway driver, and I got behind it and pushed it out by hand into the back of my pickup. We pushed it into my pickup as far as it would go, then I drove the pickup forward until only about a foot of the box was still in the Roadway truck. This left a gap between my pickup and the Roadway truck, so I got in there and under the box with my tractor forks, and lifted the box up a ways. Then the Roadway driver drove forward out from under the end of the box. Sixteen feet of box in an eight foot long truck bed! The big end of the fuselage turned out to be in the end of the box that was to the front of the Roadway truck, so it was the heavier half hanging 8' off the end of my truck. So, I had to hold the back end of the box up with the tractor forks, while chaining and strapping the front of the box around the frame and body of my pickup, to hold it in place. Then, I doubled the chains and straps, just in case one set let go with disastrous results. Here's the truck, ready to go, with just one set of chains & straps in place.
Then we got the wings box out of the truck. That was easy. We just positioned the tractor forks off the end of the truck, perpendicular to the truck. Then we pushed the box out of the truck and onto the forks. I lowered the bucket, and we strapped the box firmly to the bucket.
It was a bit precarious driving down the state road at about 15 mph with the loads, but I didn't have to go far before I turned off to the dirt road that goes 1 mile to my house. With a 10' wide load on the front of the tractor, I was sure hoping I would not meet a logging truck coming down my road! Here's the tractor coming up my driveway.
I finally got both the truck and tractor up in front of my garage.
First, I put the wings box into one garage bay. Again, that was relatively easy, even by myself. I approached diagonally, got one end in the door and onto a furniture dolly, then just lowered the box onto another dolly at the edge of the concrete floor (dollies don't work very well out in the snow) and pushed it all in the garage. Of course, it was spitting snow during all this.
Unloading the fuselage box from the truck was a bit more tricky. It involved a few more steps. First I positioned the rear end of the box over the edge of the concrete and put a dolly there.
Then I came in sideways with the tractor to support the rear of the box when I released the straps holding the front of the box down. I lowered the rear of the box to the dolly.
Then I raised the truck bed until the bed angle was greater than the box angle, so the box point of contact with the bed was at the forward end of the box, rather than the rear of the truck bed. All the white specs in the picture are snowflakes; it was snowing pretty good by then.
Then I alternated between driving the truck forward a couple feet and back a couple feet. I only had a few feet to play with before the plow would hit the snowbank. Because the angle of the bed was a little greater than the angle of the box, when I drove forward, the box would slide down the bed, and when I reversed, it would push the dolly back into the garage.
I did this until the end of the box was only about a foot still in the truck bed. Then I put a sawhorse under the box and lifted the box off the truck bed with the tractor forks. I drove the truck forward, then set the box down on the sawhorse.
Then I squeezed the truck out of the way and put the tractor forks under the box from the end, lifted it, moved the sawhorse, and pushed the box into the garage & set it down.
Got both boxes safely into the garage!
I opened up the fuselage box and checked everything OK. Van's even sent me a plan showing how to open the crates!
Unfortunately, the wings box was a bit more difficult to get into, as the box design did not match the plans, but I got it open. The box separates into two halves; each containing one wing. I thought Van's did a really great job of packing these parts. Everything is very well thought out and well secured.
DISASTER ALREADY: I
opened my wings box and removed one wing from the box half on the right, and set it
aside on the left side of the picture.
Both box halves still seemed stable at this point.
I walked between the 2 box halves and removed the other wing from the
other box side.
It was from the box half on the left that still had one side panel attached.
When I did this, the weight of the wing no longer balanced the weight
of the side panel on the box, and the box fell over onto the wing I had set aside, the
top edge of the box striking the wing just above the Styrofoam I had placed
there to separate the 2 wings outside the box.
A protruding staple on the box gouged the panel where I have put an
arrow on the picture. I now
have brace “A” keeping the box half with the side panel on it from
tipping over again. It also put a dent
in the wing panel at the end closest to you in the picture. I am not
worried about the dent; it is barely perceptible. It might only be
visible in the right light with a glossy paint job, and it is on the bottom
skin. But I am quite concerned about the gouge. It's a real
shame, because the box and the wing were at a perfect distance from each
other for maximum damage. If they'd been closer, the box would have
impacted the wing more on the flat surface, and if they'd been even a bit
further apart, the top edge of the box would have hit the styrofoam, instead
of hitting the wing just above the styrofoam.
Nasty gouge:
I've written
to Van's and sent them the picture, asking their advice about it. I
will also have an EAA Tech Inspector come out and give me his opinion as to
what I need to do about the gouge. MORAL: be very careful
handling these things, and try to anticipate anything that can go wrong.
I now need to inventory all the parts, and I also need to fabricate some sort of fixture to hold the wings, so I can work on them easily without any risk of damaging them. The Alexander Technical Center had a nice fixture. George Orndorff shows one he used in his videos. I also have the Wings Channel "From the Ground Up" video series. In that, they just laid the wing flat on a table, but I don't like that idea much. However, they also used a rotating mount for painting that I plan to emulate.
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