I was in Wichita from Sunday to Thursday, so didn't get make any RV-8 progress until this weekend. I had planned to go to the hangar on Sunday, as the temperature was forecast to be quite a bit warmer than on Saturday. But then a big winter storm developed, that was expected to yield "blizzard-like" conditions on Sunday, so it was Saturday or bust.

Saturday morning the temperature was -22°C (-8°F), which seemed a bit cold to be trying to work on the aircraft, so I delayed my departure until after lunch, when it had warmed up to -18°C (0°F). It was decidedly frigid in the hangar, but thanks to a sweater, winter jacket, insulated pants, insulated boots, thick toque, warm gloves, and a radiant heater pointing into the cockpit, it wasn't too bad. I managed to get about three hours of work in before the cold started to get too me. I tapped the 7/16" wing bolts the rest of the way home, installed the remaining 1/4" wing bolts (expect for one that had a strange gouge with corrosion in the gouge), and snugged up all the nuts on those bolts. I had hoped to get at least some of them torqued, but things went fairly slowly working in all those winter clothes.

One of the reasons I wanted to work in the hangar yesterday was to see whether it was practical to make any progress when it was quite cold. It was -18°C in the hangar when I started, and -16°C when I finished. It wasn't too bad, so there is some hope that I'll be able to make progress most weeks this winter.

It is snowing like crazy today, so needless to say I didn't go to the hangar. It will probably be a few days before the snow is cleared from the airfield, so I probably won't get back out there until Tuesday or Wednesday.