The quick drain plug didn't come in yet, but I went ahead and finished the oil change anyway. A potential RV builder and a friend of his flew down from Lima to take a look at the plane, and as long as I had those extra hands around I decided to enlist their help in getting the cowls back on. There's a breakfast fly-in coming up on Saturday, and I didn't want to miss it just because the quick drain valve wasn't in yet.
The cowls were a bit of a pain to get back on, but nothing as bad as they were back in March. There are a total of 10 wires that hold the cowls on. Some go in easy, others not so much. The two top wires have demonstrated a consistent desire to back themselves out an inch or so after even the shortest of flights, so I decided to try to fix that while I was replacing the cowls. I looped a couple of pieces of safety wire through one of the end hoops on each side, then twisted it around the ends of the wires to hold them in place.
Once that was all done, I took the potential builder for a quick ride. One of the great things about the RV community is the willingness to spend time and answer questions for people looking to either buy or build an RV. There were a lot of guys that gave me rides and answered questions back when I was first thinking about trading the Tampico for the RV, and it really felt good to continue the tradition.
Here's a snippet from the email I received from the passenger:
When I got home, my wife was on the phone with someone and she must've saw my grin. She told the person on the other line, "Well, it's all over. You should see his face." SWEEET! (So, I took a photo of my RV grin.)
I know the feeling!
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