And here is the result of the visit of the darned DAR:
To his credit, the DAR found a few things that needed fixing. Fixing them will take less time that it took me to remove the about 50 nutplate screws that dot the floor panel under the seats but I was lucky, he did not ask to take the lower cowl off, a major annoyance in the RV-12.
$340 for 50 screws amounts to about 7 cents per screw... and I get airworthiness as a bonus!
The hilarious part was when the DAR started moving the sticks which produced an horrible "cling" I had never heard before
. We soon located the noise to be an interference of the flapperon skin (both flapperons) with a rivet head on the fuselage! What happened is that the temperature was in the mid 90s for the first time since I installed the wings and the flapperons grew a tad longer, enough to hit the rivets... I mentioned the precision of my workmanship as both flapperons were affected the same way. You guys in the north better watch your flapperons when you come south!
So happy for you to have your plane ready to fly!! I've really enjoyed your blog the last few years and it's given me great inspiration for my own aviation dreams. So cool to watch your build from (almost) the beginning, thanks for sharing. Have a great time in the air and be safe!
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