Kiss Build Day 1

Saturday and Sunday 21st/22nd October 2001

A phone call from Ben at Flylight awoke me at about 10:30. "OK to deliver the kit to you today?", he asked. "Well, if you must", I answered!

Time spent on the build: 8 hours

	7 boxes and a bunch of poles wrapped in padding. My wife's comment was: "There's no way that's an aeroplane!"
	The Big box contained the pod and various bits of fibreglass. My initial reaction is that I'm not impressed with the finish quality of the 'glass, but a query to Paul Dewhurst at Flylight revealed the fact that the fibreglass is essentially unfinished. It is up to the kit builder to dress up edges as necessary, apply trim strips to cover joins, and use a cutting compound (e.g. T-Cut) to put a showroom shine on the thing. My inspector came and approved the workspace on Sunday morning, so it's 'go for full throttle' now.
	The joins show gaps an eighth of an inch wide, not all filled with glue! There is a trim strip to cover them, thankfully. The bottom of the spats looks like it's been cut with a handheld jigsaw - you've never seen such a wobbly edge in your life. Also, the fibreglass is marked where the jigsaw base ran across it. However, this is all academic, as I know know I have to do the showroom finish myself as part of the build.
	Mudguard, wheels, tyres and a battery - are we having fun yet?
	All the little packets of individually numbered nuts, bolts and bits. This photo doesn't do justice to the sheer bloody volume of the damned things! Let's put it this way - the big stack at the back is nearly a foot deep in places! Every bag has a 7 character identification number, which ties in to the build plans.
	A Rotax 582 99 fresh out of the crate. It's refreshing to work with an engine I can lift without a crane!
	So, after 8 solid hours of work, I've sorted all the little bags, and put them in bigger bags with exactly the right bits for each page of the build plans (all as advised by the build manual). This meant splitting many of the bags to get at (say) just 1 of the 3 possible left-handed grunge pins! At the end of the exercise, I have a list of about 50 parts which seem to be missing, plus about 80 packets which are not apparently needed. I did find lots of cases where the number of a part was not the number in the manual, even though the part was clearly correct - I'm betting all the missing parts will be covered by all the spares in the same way, but it's going to be a nightmare to prove it!
	Previous picture was bagged parts for Trike and Pod, whereas this one is the bits for the wing. Used up 2 pads of Post-It notes so far!
	I only took this picture to prove that after 8 hours work, I have actually assembled the first two parts: The procedure was tricky, and involved peeling the backing from a self-adhesive, non-slip rubber pad, and sticking it to the Lower Beam. I had to refer to the manual frequently, as you can see. Still, at least I've actually started assembly now!

Stop press:

Flylight have been swift to respond to queries and have impressed me so far. Here's the official answer to the missing/left-over bits issue:

"The kit system can be a little confusing, and this is something that we are working on with Air Creation, as you are one of the first customers I ask that you bear with us - we are learning as well, and we will try to sort out your problems as efficiently as we can.

The trike kit is in fact two kits - a kit for the twin trike (podless) and a kit to change it into a buggy (pod, spats, instruments etc), some of the bolts you are told to use in the first part of the manual (twin trike) are later taken out and thrown away to be replaced with longer / different bolts to turn it into a Buggy. This can result in two things, you will have quite a few parts left over when you have finished. Secondly where parts shortfalls arise in production, they will occasionally not worry about it if you also have the buggy kit and it is a part that will not be used.

Additionally it is standard practice in all aircraft, kits or otherwise to substitute some bolts which are not available at the time of production, with acceptable alternatives (slightly longer, requiring an extra washer, or different head for example).

Also sometimes instead of supplying everything in its component form you may find that Air creation have already put together some of the sub assemblies. This can of course result in you looking hard for missing bits in plastic bags when they have already been built for you! This is a production thing. Most of their machines are ready builds and sub assemblies are put together and racked before being used in assembly. when they are putting the kits together is there is a shortfall for some parts they will substitute a completed sub assembly from the production line.

Of course this is very easy for factory production with workers that know and understand the build well. For a homebuilder this can result in the very confusion that you are suffering! Generally the best plan of attack is to get on with the build and work through it and utilise parts that you have identified as 'left over' when they appear a suitable substitute for a apparently missing part. If in doubt give us a call or confirm acceptable substitute from your inspector.

If it offers any reassurance the first two kits delivered are nearly complete now and the builders initially came to the same conclusion as you - parts missing, but as they have worked through the build have found that very very nearly everything was actually there to complete the build.

To help plug any potential delays for hardware that is discovered actually missing with no acceptable substitute, we have ordered a complete hardware kit from Air Creation so we can send out bits ASAP and keep you building with the minimum of interruption.

You also have the 60 litre tank option which means that a number of bolts, brackets etc required for the 38 litre tank as listed in the build will not be there. Also the method of mounting the radiator and fairing has changed also with different parts used. Also there is a radiator header tank included with mountings and bits and pieces, which do not appear in the main build manual. There are separate instructions for these in the UK modifications list, which you have."

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Last Revised: 28 September, 2004