It has been some time since I have done one of these. A lot of things are going on around the hangar these days and most of us have had to help out with things other than the PBJ. That’s OK we don’t mind. As many of you know we never seem to have enough help and several folks do double and triple duty to “keep ‘em flying”. But this is about the PBJ so I will focus on that.

We are in the process of installing all of our remaining plexiglass. The nose glass and the upper gun turret will be in place for next week’s air show at CMA. The turret glass (did I say mucho expensive) is temporarily in place for the show as it will be a few more weeks to get it fitted up properly.

The newly reconditioned instrument panels have been installed in the cockpit and we are negotiating with vendors regarding purchase or donation of necessary avionics.

We have acquired the necessary parts for all of our seating and we will soon begin installation.

The mind numbing job of rigging the flight controls continues and soon will be completed.

Just two days ago we obtained four nose gun blisters complete with guns and suppressors from Aero Trader. Now I want all of you to know that these are much higher quality than we were originally budgeted for, twice the cost in fact, but thanks to John Syrdahl’s insistence that we purchase them and his generous $2000.00 donation they will soon adorn our PBJ!

And finally to end this report yes, that is our brand new engine soon to be completed and in just a few weeks we will begin installing it on the left wing!

To all of you that have stuck with us for so many years thank you! We are in the home stretch and now we need your support more than ever to put us over the finish line.

With your help in a matter of months the world’s only true PBJ-1J BuNo 35857 will fly.

Dan