The feeling is still sinking in that after seven years of building I actually flew a plane that I built myself. Like my brother in law said last night "to think when you started you didn't know the difference between a screw and a bolt" so I really never thought I'd get past the rudder, let alone have something that flies.

I had originally planned to have Roger do the first flight so that he could look the plane over but scheduling issues meant that I didn't want to wait,…

Updating all my documents for the inspection, it looks like I have

~ 6 years 10 months elapsed time (thanks to location and climate I can only work weekends, and not at all between August and October)

~650 hours of build time (60 of which was the vinyl wrapping)

~$63,000 of spend on parts (small to big)

~10 occasions where I gave up

~2 occurrences where I had to be restrained from torching the whole damn thing  (well, I was close to…

Today is the 6 year anniversary of opening up the rudder box in my living room and drilling the first hole. Even though I only get to work on weekends, and on weekends outside of the summer when it isn't 110+, I had kinda thought I'd be done by now. But if I've learned one thing on this project is to take all estimates and double them: and expect it to take longer than that.

While we are firmly in the 110s, I have managed to sneak some early mornings in this summer in an…

This week marked the 4th anniversary of that first snip into the metal of the rudder kit. I now have 340 hours into the project, only managed 53 last year thanks to 10 weeks of airport resurfacing that robbed me of hangar access during the best months of the year. But what I lacked in hours I made up for in dollars, lol - the purchase of the Rotax 912ULS added quite a bit to the rolling total. I think it will be worth it though.

It really is starting to look like I am near the…