I am finally approaching the end of the reassembly process. Things definitely come apart much more easily than they go together. I’ve had to make some adjustments to the fit of a few items to accommodate the thickness of the paint. I’ve also had to add some clear protective tape to protect some paint from being scuffed. Today I reinstalled the elevators, spliced the cable that controls the electric trim, reinstalled the canopy handle and various fairings, etc.

Late this afternoon I reweighed the aircraft. I was hoping the weight gain would be less than 20 lb, but the scales claim an increase of 28 lb. But, I note that the scales are a month overdue for a recalibration, and the last time they were calibrated they were found to have drifted high by about 1.2%. Perhaps they have drifted high again. I’ll ask the scale owner to tell me when the scales have been recalibrated and I’ll weigh the aircraft again.

I’m very glad that I recently got approval for a 100 lb increase in the gross weight. The new higher empty weight won’t be a practical problem, but there will be a very small decrease in the rate of climb.

The aircraft is almost ready to fly. I need to add some paint-protection tape underneath the edge of the canopy skirt, install the wing walk no-slip area, and I need to finish reinstalling the wheel pants. I hope to get airborne some afternoon this week, assuming this nasty weather system that gave us snow all day today moves off.