[Cracky]

I will be the first to tell ANYONE that I do not like to build. Didn't like it when I got into the hobby and don't really enjoy it now. So needless to say all of my planes have been ARFs. I have a beautiful (and semi-understanding) wife and we have twin 7 month old daughters. Needless to say my life is pretty busy and I don't have a lot of free time at home.

I have been thinking lately about getting a 100cc plane so I have been checking out all of the airframes that are out there and the ones that are coming out. Two years ago I had a Hangar 9 Extra 330s and enjoyed it a lot. I had thought many times that if Hangar 9 came out with a 33-35% Extra 260 it would be a hit. Well a little while back I saw that Hangar 9 was indeed coming out with a 35% 260 that was designed by Mike McConville. More information then started coming out about the new 260. I was very happy to hear about the level of work done to it at the factory. Pre-hinged control surfaces and removable rudder, thats some good stuff.....especially for those like me. Carbon Fiber tailwheel, thats nice. They all get the job done, but CF does it with a little *bling*. A fuel tank that is built AND installed. Thats thinking outside the box. Then I heard that it came with a lightweight Helmet Head pilot that was painted to match. You mean no buying a $50-$80 HH Pilot and paying someone a bunch of money to paint it for you so its not just a single color.....BRILLIANT!

The heavens opened up and I knew that I just had to get one of these. I'm going to try to document the build.....no wait, this isn't a build...with the completeness of this plane its more of an assembly.

My day started out with feeding one of my daughters, then I was off to Home Depot for a couple little things. Our basement is unfinished so there are only a couple of pull chain lights. I decided that I need to have a couple of shop lights to help illuminate the build area. So lighting was taken care of, now I needed something to build this plane on. Sawhorses and a slab door. Turns out that it was a great thing to do. $25 for the door and $50 for the pair of sawhorses. These are adjustable height and width sawhorses. I think they should work pretty good. Happy Belated Father's Day To Me!!!! Well I got back and started clearing out all of the junk that I had been "storing" in the area. That took a while and then I got the lights and table up.