Several months ago, I placed a rather expensive order with Van’s for one (1) RV-10 fuselage kit.  The process itself involved a lot of emails back and forth to a very helpful lady in OR to figure out any additions/deletions that I wanted to make to the kit.  It’s a very popular question, so here’s what I did:

Removed:

All windows and main windscreen (to be replaced by CE Bailey’s)

Rudder pedal components (dictated by Approach Engineering)

Instrument panel (using Aerosport)

I inquired about adding the doors into the fuse kit instead of the finishing kit but you get penalized for messing with a good thing and I figured I’ve got plenty to work on.

Now, this wouldn’t be a good story without drama.  The drama started by asking if I could ship the crate by UPS Freight and my company’s account which earns an incredible discount.  Van’s agreed but marked the BOL collect instead of 3rd Party.  This equaled a temporary bill of over $4000 from UPS.  Long story made short, I correct the first issue in short order and got the charges back down to a reasonable $233 including residential delivery.

Which brings up an interesting point.  Delivery.  Long way from OR to NC.  Lot of different ways to get here.  This is how our shipment did it.  Loaded onto a semi trailer which was then loaded onto a train car which then broke somewhere in Idaho without anyone knowing it meaning it got lost.  I discovered this for UPS on Wednesday while tracking the shipment online.  It said it was in OR on Wednesday and on time scheduled for delivery on Thursday.  Right.

A week later and some great help from a real live person who works for UPS in CLT, the crate showed up to our house and we pushed it in the garage.  Finally home safe and sound and thanks to a comprimise, all at a bargain freight charge of $100.