A Stay at Grady's

	20 Jan 2009	The Concept This is what I walked into Grady's with, well, that and some additional drawings I had in Visio.
	20 Feb	This is the first shot I had with the work in progress. Doug Reeves has been over at Grady's and caught a shot. At the time, Grady and Brandon were finishing up RV-8 Dakota Queen (which turned out really nice!).
	2 March	Kirk Groves took this one while it's tucked back into the paint booth. I think Brandon is applying the roundel maskings.
		And one more shot with the yellow aft fuselage area and black anti-glare panels roughed in.
	3 March	Moving right along, Grady provided the next three photos with the exterior markings in place. We talked on the phone and decided to do a little repositioning of the fuselage numbers. If we did them original size, it would have pushed them too far aft. As it was, we moved the fuse side roundel forward a little. This should work.
		Another side view
		Finally, a bit of color added. The yellow (Trainer Yellow or AN Yellow) is applied to top of wings, fuselage roundel, top of aft fuselage, and top of horizontal stab.
	10 March	Making nice progress and the airplane is going back together.
		Lot's of Yellow! I don't think there's going to be a problem seeing this airplane!
		Grady promised it would be done on a Tuesday!
	12 March	I was supposed to depart for DFT today, but due to a cold that got worse, I cancelled the trip. Next week is Alex's birthday so I'm planning on returning to Dallas on the 26th.
	13 March	The sun finally came out in Dallas and Grady rolled 3434 out for some photos. As part of the silver, it had to be clear-coated and from what I see, it turned out really nice.
		The Dunville Compass Rose.
		Note the gloss under the wing. And yes, the orientation of the numbers is deliberate.
		I can't wait to get this back for some flying!
	27 March 09	I flew back to Dallas on the 26 via Alaska Air and figured that the weather has to break sometime. Well, this AM, Northwest Regional was about 700" OVC with about 10kts out of the east. The ariplane was basically ready to go and I did a good inspection. I chatted with Doug Reeves a bit and had lunch with Brandon and his Dad at the cafe'. Brandon's Dad is a helo pilot for some muckity-muck and flies a Bell off a boat in Barcelona. Sounds like a pretty cool job, but it has it's ups and downs. After lunch the wind took a rest so I pulled out the RV to give it some exercise, which was long overdue.
		Doug Reeves happened to be around and got a couple pics shown at left.
		This is the first flight in the new duds. I like it! This is really a high visibility paint job so I shouldn't be missed!  Somewhere on the VAF Forums, someone mentioned big letters on the bottom of your wing when on the approach to Oshkosh at Fisk.  I can hear it now...RV thirty-four thirty four...rock your wings <grin>. Hopefully the weather breaks a little tomorrow so I can get out of the Dallas area. Out west, everything looks good. It's the local Dallas area that's the problem.
		The trip home...