It's in the mail!

I'll be darned. You can fit 11 years of work into a 9x12 envelope.

The plane is done -- more or less -- and a few weeks of organizing paperwork culminated today with walking the envelope to the Post Office. Inside is all the paperwork I need to get the process started for a final inspection by the DAR (Designated Airworthiness Representative) of the FAA.

It's really happening.

There's still plenty of work to do. I've organized the paperwork and logs at the hangar. I'm a little concerned because I don't have a paperwork trail of inspections by technical counselors along the way of this project, but the DAR -- hopefully -- will be Tim Mahoney of St. Cloud, who knows the RV community pretty well and took a quick look at my project last year when he was doing the inspection for my hangar mate. And, let's face it, I'm not much of an unknown in the world of building RVs.

I've also scheduled transition training with Tom Berge for the week of May 22nd. The insurance carrier requires five hours of transition training, but even if it didn't, I'd want significant stick time in an RV before venturing out on my own.

The sales tax has been paid (actually, just added to the home equity; my plan to have the engine paid off by first flight failed and failed miserably), the insurance has been upgraded to full flight coverage, and now I'm looking for a temporary hangar at Airlake in Farmington/Lakeville.

My airport -- Fleming Field in South Saint Paul -- does not allow first flights because the houses are backed right up to the airport fence. Instead, I'll get a corridor assigned to me to take off and travel to Airlake. I'm not sure how I'm going to find temporary quarters but I've begun the search.

The only things left for the plane itself are a fire extinguisher (ordered) and a new ELT battery (not ordered yet).

When will the first flight be? Sometime in June. Do you really need a hint?