It has been about 3 days since plan B (which involved us buying the airframe from Taobao) was activated.

As Cainiao’s forwarding warehouse was in Dongguan while the Skysurfer was dispatched from Wenzhou, we expected shipping to take some time due to the huge distance. We were thus pleasantly surprised at how the package consisting of two aeroplanes made it halfway across the country in half a day.

Mad respect to Yuantong Express for the speedy delivery!

However, we were extremely dismayed to learn that our package had exceeded the maximum permissible dimensions for ordinary air shipping! What a bummer!

Love letter from Dylan from Zhongtong Express

Translation courtesy of Professor Google:

Hello, this is Zhongtong Taobao Collection Warehouse.
Please read the following carefully:

Your parcel (waybill number: YT4661635916747) cannot be consolidated because it exceeds the official Taobao shipping size regulations.
You can choose to return the package by express or transfer this package offline, and use Zhongtong Container Lines to continue the transshipment, and you need to pay the overseas freight of this package.

Air freight: The freight is RMB [396] and the time limit is 7-10 working days;
Shipping: The freight is RMB [137], and the time limit is 17-20 working days;

If you need to continue the transfer, please contact WeChat customer service WeChat account 16573409665
Official size regulations: The length of one side (length/width/height) should not exceed 80CM, and the sum of three sides (length + width + height) should not exceed 150CM.

If the package is not processed within 36 hours, it will be returned. If you have any questions, you can contact WeChat customer service: 16573940965 or contact Zhongtong Container Lines online customer service
Remarks: If there is no reply to this WhatsAPP, please contact WeChat customer service 16573940965
Remarks: Because WhataAPP is unstable, it may cause inconvenience to you. Please understand

Note: You can’t pay here, you can pay at Taobao shop in WeChat customer service
Remarks: If there is no WeChat, please contact the seller to let the seller contact the customer service of the warehouse. Thank you for your cooperation

If the WeChat customer service does not reply in time, please wait patiently, thank you, wish you a happy life

¥396 for air shipping! That’s around S$80! Outrageous! But oh well…we were working against time and would rather pay for faster shipping. So after explaining our predicament to Dr Ho, he allowed us to opt for the more expensive but faster air shipping. Hooray! After spending some time negotiating with Dylan on WeChat, we managed to make payment for oversized shipping. Here’s to hoping that it will arrive as soon as possible…

Behold, our premium shipping😢

It as been a couple of days since unavailability of parts on HobbyKing halted progress on our drone. Though the possibility of obtaining the items we need on Taobao was always lurking in the corner, we were reluctant to do due to different people telling us different things regarding claiming from NTU. (Tony said that when he attempted to do so a while back his claim was rejected, whereas Dr Ho vaguely remembered that groups in previous years had successfully claimed for purchases on Taobao)

We also made our trailblazer order consisting of small, inexpensive items from Taobao to try our luck claiming. Should that go through, the million dollar question of whether or not we can claim from Taobao would be solved. Meanwhile, we also emailed Ms J to ask about claiming of items on non-English websites.

Big Hurrah!

Around a day after sending the email, two events happened in quick succession: our groupmate was summoned to a meeting regarding discrepancies in deducted amount between his bank statement and the receipt issued by Taobao. This was enough evidence to show show that contrary to what Tony said, we indeed could place our orders off Taobao!

Not long after, Ms J also replied to our email query:

Taobao Approved!

Now comes the mad scramble to get our parts ordered and delivered as soon as possible!

Parts Approval: Attempt 1

Banking on our past experience with remote controlled aircraft, we came up with a parts list containing the following:

This was sent to Kanesh (a senior who is now running his own show and is assigned our mentor) to review.

Parts Approval: Attempt 1 Results

After around 3 days, Kanesh came back with the verdict. Overall, he was alright with the parts just that he strongly recommended that we use the Turnigy 9x, as there are sufficient online resources (manuals/videos) for setup/calibration/troubleshooting. Acceding to this request, we altered the parts list accordingly:

Roadblock! $$$ Concerns!

After gleefully adding our items to the Hobbyking cart, we we going to checkout, eagerly expecting shipping to be cheap yet fast. Little did we expect to be greeted by a three figure shipping amount!

We were in for a rude surprise upon checkout!

Alas, we were told by Kanesh to hold our order; he will try to purchase the items for us using his account banking on the hope that his HobbyKing VIP status might grant him a substantial discount.

Just like that, our progress on building the drone has grinded to a halt: grand plans of spending the next week having bonding time in the lab building and flying the Bixler were shelved.