So 18 months ago when Ann saw a move south was imminent, we had to figure out what to do with the airplane. The chances of finding a house with a shop big enough for the plane was not very likely. So the plan was to ship it to Malcolm. I could make the short (40 minute) flight from NW Atlanta to work on it while I was trying to find a place for the plane. Or if we never found a place for it, I could always commute..

But the move didn’t happen. And shipping it all the way back up here was too much money. And there was a possibility that we would be moving at some point soon. So we waited. And I flew down to Greenville as often as possible. Logistics were a pain. I drove the explorer down and left it at the airport so I would have transportation when I was there. Whenever I had a class to teach that was anywhere near (400 miles is “near”, right?) Greenville, I would spend a couple days working on the plane with Malcolm. It took me a while but I eventually found a nice place to stay and got into a groove of heading down to South Carolina.

At this point, there doesn’t look like there’s any chance of move so we made the call to bring the plane back home.

The big day is scheduled to be February 25th. I’ll fly down (commercial) on the 22nd and finish up a couple tasks and then start prepping the plane for the trip back north.

I really can’t say enough good things about Malcolm. His glass work (fiberglass, that is) is just spectacular. And his eye on finish work is beyond reproach. After looking at other planes at Oshkosh and Sun-n-Fun, my plane (in primer) looks WAY better than quite a few finished (and painted) airplanes. The guy is a freaking artist. If the plane hadn’t spent the last 18 months down there, I probably wouldn’t be nearly as far along as I am now. By my estimation, 1 hour of “Malcolm time” is the equivalent of 8 hours (or more) of my time.

It’ll be nice to walk out to the shop whenever I want but without a doubt, things won’t move at the same pace as when me and Malcolm are working together.