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Permalink Reply by Jim and Amelia Isaacs on February 13, 2020 at 1:55am

Yep, I experienced the same thing during our build. My wife has a lot of good old fashioned common sense and that was invaluable. Having a fresh look from a different perspective can solve many problems.

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Permalink Reply by John Austin on February 13, 2020 at 7:53am

I agree that having someone else assess a problem - even someone with no building/aviation experience - can help you "think outside the box."  However, I've also found it very useful to get another homebuilder that has experience other than with Zenith aircraft to look at a problem and suggest solutions.  Often, they've gathered tricks and tips for their aircraft build and can suggest something that might be applicable to the problem at hand.

John

N750A

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Permalink Reply by Gary Reed on February 13, 2020 at 12:12pm

"New Eyes" are often helpful in those situations. It reminds of the Urban Legend (don't know if it's true) of a group of engineers trying to update/rehab an office building but they couldn't decide how to put the extra elevators in.  ALLEGEDLY, it was a young girl who made the suggestion to put the elevators on the Outside of the building and ... Voila ... problem solved.

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Permalink Reply by Carl Orton on February 14, 2020 at 10:11am

....all of which is one reason why your local EAA chapter provides Technical Counselors at no charge to provide that "extra set of eyes."

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Permalink Reply by Bob Pustell on February 14, 2020 at 3:07pm

A similar "other ideas" story just to show it is so.......... Years ago, when my wife was my girlfriend, the following happened.

When visiting my parents I would always make lustful remarks for the wooden propeller that was mounted over the doors of a neighbor's barn. The owner of said barn was not an aviator but had come upon the prop someplace and put it up as a decoration. Eventually the old gent passed on and his family held a tag sale outside the barn. My Dad walked up to the table and pointed to prop above the barn doors..... How much for that? They said ten bucks as is, where is. Dad went home and got a ladder and I got the old prop for my next birthday. It was badly weathered on the front face of the prop where it had been exposed to the weather for many years so I set the prop aside in the garage and waited to have time to sand and refinish it before making it a wall hanging in my home.

When my girlfriend (now wife) was in the garage a while later she asked about the prop in the corner. I explained the story and explained how I needed to refinish it before mounting it. She looked it over, spun it around to the back side, the side that had been against the barn all those years, and said "what's wrong with this side?" I was dumbfounded. My literal mind was only accepting that the front side of the prop should be the display side. The back side still had varnish on it and cleaned up nicely with a little bit of finish restorer from a furniture repair shop. To this day it is on display over the door into the den, back side displayed, weathered side against the wall.

I get fond thoughts of both my late father and my beloved bride every time I look at that prop on the wall.

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Permalink Reply by Jonathan Fay on February 24, 2020 at 3:54pm

Never question your wife's judgement. Look who she married!

My wife was wonderfully supportive of my build, helped with riveting and keeping me company during building and her perspective for helping me see the forest thru the threes was hugely helpful during the build. 

I won't start a build on anything unless she is 100% behind it.

Jonathan

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