One of the next things to do was a weight and balance on the plane. I used the EAA chapter scales, got the plane level and weighed the plane with and without wheel pants. The main thing is to make sure the plane is in flight level attitude, which I accomplished by raising the main gear up about 2″ and keeping the nose wheel scale on the floor. Some fine tuning was done by letting some air out of the nose wheel.

With all the creature comforts I put in.. she’s a bit heavy. With the wheel pants, it weights 1806. With a max gross of 2800lbs, that puts me just under 1000 pounds useful load.. Of course before paint. That will add another 40-50 lbs.. So I’ll be mid 900’s in the end. For our primary mission with 3 people plus bags.. that’ll work just fine.

Lots of time spent preparing for the inspection working down my list.. until I had nothing else to do. Below is the plane all ready for inspection.

The DAR inspection was scheduled for May 29th. A little over 8 years since starting my first pieces of the empennage. Prior to this date, I had my Tech Councilor come by and do a pre-inspection. Nothing was really found.. He made about a dozen minor suggestions, which I addressed in the couple of days following his visit. I also had a couple of other builders at my field come by to take a look.. Can never hurt to have more sets of eyes on things ahead of the actual inspection..

May 29th came and the DAR arrived around 1:30pm. Inspection took place with lots of conversation, asking questions of me, and looking over the airplane. Once he was satisfied, we sat down to do the paperwork… There’s a lot of it! He printed out my airworthiness certificate which is part of my operating limitations to be kept in the plane with the registration and W&B info. So as of May 29th.. I now officially have an AIRPLANE!!!

It’s time to get this bird in the air and fly off my Phase 1 test flights. I have been working on checklists, emergency procedures and cockpit flows as I’ve had some time to start to prep myself mentally for the upcoming first flight. I also went down to PA to see the Van’s East Coast rep to do some transition training in the factory RV-10. Another step to get myself ready to fly (and also satisfy my insurance requirements of a checkout in type.).