Now that this thing had my attention I needed to fill in a few blanks. Answer so many questions that had filled my head since this popped in there in the first place.
I mean..
Could I fit the Falco in a container?
If I could, could I do it reasonably quickly? - it would be no point to have to spend a month or even a week for that matter, putting it back together.
It was going to be expensive.. but just how much?
Would I be allowed to do it?
What paperwork did I need and who do I need to tell?
When would I go?
How much time would I need?
etc.etc.etc.
So I needed to make a start I guess so I figured I could set a date. Next year seemed a bit close to get this organised so why not 2012. No good reason why not I guess and I needed something to work toward so tentatively, 2012 it is!
I also spun the idea past Mike and Bryn at Parakai. They didn’t look too strangely at me. I think Mike thought I was a bit nuts but then as Bryn got excited about the idea the brainstorm took hold.
With all the discussion and a bit of web research this was looking more and more doable.
Somewhere along the line the idea came out that I needed to contact the EAA. From all the ideas of people to contact, this seemed like the obvious first point of contact.
That night I put together an email to the EAA information center and within 3 days I had an email back with a lot of the legal info I needed. In fact the reply even involved words like “simple” and “easy” and had references to website instructions and links to forms.
Most of it was based around aircraft flying into the USA such as Canadian private pilots but from what I could read, I fit a lot of these categories and with EAA sponsorship it was all going to be within the realm of possibility.
A few guys at work looked at me as if I was mad but then pilots are famous for being tight.
They way I figured it, people often spend tens of thousands of dollars on holidays with business class upgrades etc. then I can spend that kind of money on my holdiday too, only with a shipping company !. OK.. that still is weird !