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9/19/2014 - She's Airworthy!

Finally, after putting it off for as long as possible it was finally time to invite Mel Asberry to come out and look at the project. My to-do list is pretty short at this point.

Drumroll please...

Suspense over...it passed. It is now a real-live airplane. Yahoo! Don't I look happy?

My dad came out for the inspection as well. So I have a witness that it passed with flying colors!

Another thing that I don't have a picture of is the certification of the pitot/static system and the transponder. This was done by a local guy who met me at my hangar and we hooked up a bunch of fancy test equipment to the plane. He checked everything up to 20,000 feet and then signed my logbook.

Ok, so believe it or not there was an AD for the nosewheel strut that I decided to go ahead and comply with. It involves adding a thick steel plate between the shock bushings and the engine mount.

I didn't get any pictures of me installing it, but I did manage to snap a photo of the plate all painted and pretty. I'll hopefully never see this thing again.

Oh, and I added another flap position sensor so I could drive the Ray Allen LED position indicator on the instrument panel.

Also, I didn't like the pink cowl, so I filled the pinholes as much as I could and then sprayed grey primer.

Here's how she looks in December.

2/5/2015 - I went flying with Alex. He does transition training in his RV-10 and conveniently he lives here in the metroplex. So on a cold but clear day in early February, we went flying and he taught me how to land an RV-10 safely.

So if you've been following the weather here in Texas this year you might know that we have had record rainfall. It seems like ever since I did my flight training it has either been freezing or else it's been raining. I mean just about every day for three months. Needless to say it definitely cut in to my flight testing plans.

6/20/2015 - First Flight

Finally, after many delays, I flew the plane. My friend Todd was there to be an extra set of eyes and the ground crew. I had him look over everything and make sure I didn't miss anything. And then it was just me and the plane.

On the second flight I took the plane out to the practice area east of the field. I will compose my flight test thoughts in more detail and add them to another section of the site.

For know I can tell you that the engine runs great, all the systems are behaving themselves, and my biggest concern is a heavy left wing. Maybe I need to go on a diet.

She's off to the paint shop on Monday.

Next: Painted!