First order inventory

I got a little later start than I wanted due to an unexpected appointment, but from 7 to 9 this evening I unpacked all of the items from the empennage crate. Van's groups the parts into several sub-assemblies, and happily I found all of them in the crate, correct and undamaged. It was getting late and I was a little cranky (see below), so I postponed the work of opening up each sub-assembly to inventory their contents. For now it's enough that all of the top-level items are present and there's no sign of shipping damage. That's important because you only have 5 days to file a "concealed damage" claim with the shipper, after which they won't cooperate with any attempt to impose liability. On the other hand, Van's gives you 30 days to do a complete inventory, during which time they'll replace any missing item free. After that you either need a waiver from them, or you'll be buying the missing parts. I won't need 30 days; I expect to be done by the weekend.

So far nearly everything has been an excellent experience. But I definitely got frustrated and pissed off while trying to remove the large parts (skins for the horizontal stabilizer, tail cone, etc) from the crate. The problem I faced is that those large sheet metal parts are securely taped down with black duct tape, no doubt to avoid damage from shifting in freight. But almost all of those pieces of tape are hidden from view and difficult to access, with the result that a piece can look like it's free, but when you try to lift it out of the crate, it either won't budge, or worse if you've cleared only some of the tape that binds it, it'll bend. Many pieces are taped to the inside of other pieces that they're nested inside. For example, the main vertical stabilizer skin has a 180° bend in it, and the bottom of it is taped down, while other flat sheets are nested inside, and they are taped down both to the crate and to the stab. So it's a big 3-dimensional puzzle trying to work out where the tape is, and what order to release each part. Ever play pick-up sticks as a kid? It's like that, except mistakes damage very expensive parts.

Anyway, my advice to future builders on this topic is this: most importantly, take your time. A large part of my frustration was caused by my own expectation that the process of unpacking should be easy and quick. Secondly, this is a job that would be a lot easier with a second pair of eyes and hands, particularly on an assistant who has no difficulty getting down on the ground and crawling around. Finally, it turns out the best way to remove that duct tape is the same as removing a Band-Aid: get a good grip, then one quick pull. Otherwise it wants to pull the aluminum's protective film up with it.