Airworthy!!
I have a slip of pink paper that says the plane is now legally able to fly! The DAR inspection went very smoothly. I was a little concerned when two people showed up. Turns out an employee from the FAA MIDO office decided to do an “over the shoulder” on my DAR today. I figured that couldn’t be good, but he really just stood back and hung out for the most part. The DAR found a couple of minor things. He said I needed spare fuses accessible to the pilot. I put some in a Ziploc bag in the seat pocket. (I didn’t ask any further into the logic behind this, since my fuse panels are up under the forward skin access hatches. I guess it meets the letter of the law, if not the intent. I wouldn’t want to mess with replacing a fuse in flight anyway.) My COM1 antenna wire was a little tight behind the panel. I freed up some slack from down below. And the final item was my landing light wires needed a little more securing out at the wing tips. Done.
Two minor issues in the paperwork. I asked for a 50nm radius around Renton for the test flight area, because so much of the area is Sea-Tac class B space and densely populated. Instead I got a 60nm by 25nm box, approximately 1/3 of which is over the Cascades. I ended up with even less room than the 30nm radius. Not good for an airplane that cruises at 200mph.
The other issue is that my operating limitations prohibit aerobatics. Supposedly I was supposed to request that in my program letter. Well I checked the box that said my plane is aerobatics capable. What more was I supposed to do? I’m not too worried about it. I’ll add aerobatics later via the FSDO when I’m ready to try flying upside down.
Unfortunately the weather took a real turn for the worse this afternoon. Plus Terry, the guy doing my first flight, is stuck in California due to weather. He might fly commercial back up here. We’re going to keep an eye on the weather. Hopefully we’ll get a window of decent weather later this week.