Importing from America

[Soleair]

I have ordered a MiniMax kit from the 'States (more accurately, a box of raw materials & a set of plans). It is being shipped by air to Sydney Airport. Apparently this is cheaper than surface carriage.

 

The nice man over there said all I had to do when collecting it is to turn up with i.d., sign for it & pay the customs dues.

 

Can it really be this simple? Has anyone done it & would let us know how it went? My 'kit' is mostly untreated wood. Will anyone in an Official Hat get excited about importing voracious pests into our fair land?

 

Any help much appreciated.

 

Bruce

 

 

[metalman]

I have ordered a MiniMax kit from the 'States (more accurately, a box of raw materials & a set of plans). It is being shipped by air to Sydney Airport. Apparently this is cheaper than surface carriage.The nice man over there said all I had to do when collecting it is to turn up with i.d., sign for it & pay the customs dues.

 

Can it really be this simple? Has anyone done it & would let us know how it went? My 'kit' is mostly untreated wood. Will anyone in an Official Hat get excited about importing voracious pests into our fair land?

 

Any help much appreciated.

 

Bruce

Not sure of the details but when I bought my RV6 kit in I used a customs agent, there's a heap of fees involved and they dealt with it all and gave me a single $ figure to pay, the timber might be an issue unless you have documents from the supplier stating the relevant standard, there was a standard the timber crate my RV had to comply with and Vans had the docs with the rest of the paperwork,

Matty

 

 

[bushcaddy105]

It's some years since my experience with importing a kit, but back then the rule had just come in:- If it's in a wooden crate and/or the crate contains any wood, it WILL be fumigated. I can't imagine that the rules would have softened any since then.

 

 

[JG3]

Bruce

 

I have ordered a MiniMax kit from the 'States (more accurately, a box of raw materials & a set of plans). It is being shipped by air to Sydney Airport. Apparently this is cheaper than surface carriage.The nice man over there said all I had to do when collecting it is to turn up with i.d., sign for it & pay the customs dues.

 

Can it really be this simple? Has anyone done it & would let us know how it went? My 'kit' is mostly untreated wood. Will anyone in an Official Hat get excited about importing voracious pests into our fair land?

 

Any help much appreciated.

 

Bruce

Please keep us informed how it all turns out.

 

Good luck.

 

JG

 

 

[dutchroll]

I have ordered a MiniMax kit from the 'States (more accurately, a box of raw materials & a set of plans). It is being shipped by air to Sydney Airport. Apparently this is cheaper than surface carriage.The nice man over there said all I had to do when collecting it is to turn up with i.d., sign for it & pay the customs dues.

 

Can it really be this simple? Has anyone done it & would let us know how it went? My 'kit' is mostly untreated wood. Will anyone in an Official Hat get excited about importing voracious pests into our fair land?

 

Any help much appreciated.

 

Bruce

No, it is not that simple.

I have just imported an experimental plane, partially disassembled, from the USA. Although it had to come in its own shipping container, the rules are the same.

 

Two agencies will want to deal with you - Quarantine (AQIS), and Australian Customs. Believe it or not, Australian Customs will most likely be the easiest. They just want your money, or more precisely, your 10% GST. You will need to furnish acceptable evidence of how much you paid for this to be calculated, i.e., a sales receipt or invoice stating the full value of the item (plus shipping cost). Customs will not release the item until you have paid up.

 

AQIS can be a real pain. If your shipment involves untreated wood, you need serious advice as to what you need to do with it. In my case, the wood structure was varnished and covered and they left it alone (thankfully). However the packing wood used to ship the aircraft was raw and had to be individually stamped and certified that it met the required quarantine standard before leaving the USA. Every....single....piece. This info is available on their website. If you can't get a Quarantine clearance because they are not happy, they will almost certainly force an unpack of the entire shipment/kit for inspection and treatment. Furthermore if you're importing anything with new tyres, you will need a signed statement on the manufacturer or supplier's letterhead that they are clean and free of dirt, mosquito larvae, and eggs, and have been kept undercover since manufacture. Try getting this from someone in the USA!

 

Even with all of this done and a mound of corresponding paperwork, the shipment was still held for several days on the docks for X-ray inspection.

 

I had a shipping agency coordinate all this for me and they helped me an awful lot by instructing me in precisely what I needed to do. Without them it would've been a nightmare. The wood is the big thing to sort out.

 

 

[Soleair]

Thanks for all the replies.

 

I was rather afraid it wasn't going to be that straightforward.

 

Dutchroll, I would be most grateful if you could let me know the contact details of the agent you used. Seems the first step is to find out from the agent what documentation is required, and what is likely to happen.

 

Nothing's easy, is it? I just want to build my plane.

 

Bruce

 

 

[nickduncs84]

Dutchroll, out of interest can you give us a ballpark idea of how much the whole process costs you?

 

 

[ExJourno]

I'm commenting so I see the outcome of this...

 

Oh and, uh, airfreight? As in, courier? If so, it may, only may, be handled for you by the courier company... as per my experiences getting DHL deliveries from Pakistan (leather products). When I imported a heap of Roof Top tents I had manufactured for me in China, then sea freighted, it was a little more tedious. I used an agent for that one.

 

 

[cscotthendry]

Nothing's easy, is it?

Bruce

Not when you have to deal with the bureaucracy. It's their job to generate as much convoluted paperwork as possible...to justfy their jobs.

Ohhh, don't get me started on the bureaucracy.......................

 

 

[Robert]

If you have ordered the kit than its to late if not Have you looked into purchasing the plans and sourcing the wood in Aust

 

Thats how i built my Hi-Max

 

 

[dutchroll]

Dutchroll, I would be most grateful if you could let me know the contact details of the agent you used. Seems the first step is to find out from the agent what documentation is required, and what is likely to happen.Nothing's easy, is it? I just want to build my plane.

 

Bruce

[email protected]

C&H Freight are aircraft importing specialists and they advertise in the SAAA mag. I found Christine and her daughter Shelly to be excellent, even as customs/quarantine heaped more demands on us (mainly due to importing a Polaris AWD in the same container!) and I had to start doing stuff which made me uncomfortable (i.e., fudging the tyre certification document because no b*stard in the USA would sign their name to it). But it worked.

 

Dutchroll, out of interest can you give us a ballpark idea of how much the whole process costs you?

In rough terms it cost me $10k to import a 40ft "high wall" shipping container from east coast USA to Port Botany and have it delivered to Camden Airport on a side-loading truck so that it could be dropped to ground level. That includes shipping insurance, which is handled by a different company recommended by C&H Freight. What you put inside it doesn't change this cost, except for insurance of course.

That excludes the costs and GST for the stuff inside the container! You don't wanna know how much the plane cost.

 

 

[metalman]

[email protected]C&H Freight are aircraft importing specialists and they advertise in the SAAA mag. I found Christine and her daughter Shelly to be excellent, even as customs/quarantine heaped more demands on us (mainly due to importing a Polaris AWD in the same container!) and I had to start doing stuff which made me uncomfortable (i.e., fudging the tyre certification document because no b*stard in the USA would sign their name to it). But it worked.

 

In rough terms it cost me $10k to import a 40ft "high wall" shipping container from east coast USA to Port Botany and have it delivered to Camden Airport on a side-loading truck so that it could be dropped to ground level. That includes shipping insurance, which is handled by a different company recommended by C&H Freight. What you put inside it doesn't change this cost, except for insurance of course.

 

That excludes the costs and GST for the stuff inside the container! You don't wanna know how much the plane cost.

If I did it again I'd go with a container and then fill it as much as possible, I got some stuff from Vans with a guy bringing in machinery and he put it out there to fill it up, was the easiest one I've done , and yeh, the tyre dec is a ridiculous drama, I ended up getting one but only after I promised to name ( rename ! He'll get used to being call Horatio one day ) one of my sons after the yank tormentor

 

 

[Soleair]

Thanks Dutchroll. I'll get in touch with C&H first thing tomorrow.

 

Bruce

 

 

[nickduncs84]

Thanks dutchroll. One last question, how much did you spend on it before it got on the ship? Inspections, wing removal, etc.

 

 

[ave8rr]

I used CHfreight last year to get a firewall forward kit for my Rans S6ES. I paid Rans for the kit and CH did the rest to my door. It was air freight which was cheaper and of course quicker. I paid CH one payment and they paid all fees and GST etc.

 

Cheers Mike

 

 

[dutchroll]

Thanks dutchroll. One last question, how much did you spend on it before it got on the ship? Inspections, wing removal, etc.

The plane was fully test flown beforehand so bear in mind it was a brand new complete, serviceable aircraft with a full FAA experimental certificate.

The packing wood inspection and stamping was $US428.00

 

To disassemble the whole plane (remove wings, prop, tail section) was $US2000 in labour.

 

To prep the aircraft for packing including building the wing jigs, prop stand, etc, was about the same, $US2000.

 

To load and pack the plane and all components, spares, etc into the container was $US1500.

 

It was a big job - this is a 430HP radial powered aerobatic biplane with a huge propeller. Very expensive to disassemble, prep and pack, taking about 80 man-hours in professional labour costs, but there wasn't a solitary scratch on it when it came out at the other end!

 

 

[pda]

The rules may be a little different now .. I imported a full spruce kit for a pietenpol some years ago from Canada and it was relatively simple. The kit was shipped by air in two large cardboard tubes. Customs did open the cardboard tubes and they were quite happy once they saw the type of timber. I was issued with an invoice for all costs by the local office of the international freight company used by the canadian kit manufacturer and the kit was then available for collection. I think that things can get a little more complicated if timber packaging is used ..I understand that, at least from some countries the timber has to be heat treated and certified.

 

 

[aj_richo]

Just as an aside, AQUIS have been known to demand drilling and pesticide injection into a fibreglass covered wood Sensenich propeller!

 

Sanity prevailed after many phone calls and explaining the standard of wood required to build said propeller, it was delivered to the relieved owner free of holes and pesticide...

 

 

[Bandit12]

I've never imported an aircraft or parts thereof, but import regularly for our business. A good agent is worth their weight in gold. We tried sea shipping but only had a part container - won't make that mistake again. Also the fee upon fee upon fee upon fee at the docks really made it difficult, so airfreight is the go unless you are going a whole container like dutchroll described.