At least that is what I am hoping. I have my inspection scheduled for Saturday. If all goes well I will have my airworthiness certificate and operating limitations when it is complete.

I have gone through all of the paperwork and organized it. I have the original instruction manual, a binder with instructions for all of the the stuff that was not part of the kit, a builders log, a photo album and a file box full of receipts, manuals, and forms. Some of this is to establish that the airplane was indeed amateur  built and not professionally built and also that I built it.

The rules that I am certifying my aircraft under allow a person to build an airplane for their own recreation and education and they have to complete at least 51% of the work. So the kit cannot be too complete. You can get all of the free help you want but if you pay someone to work on it there can be issues regarding whether the 51% rule was violated. Under the amateur built rules I will also be able to get a “repairman certificate” that will allow me to do the annual inspections on my aircraft. That will hopefully make aircraft ownership a lot cheaper as I won’t have to hire a certified mechanic for the inspections.

Tonight I plan to move all of this paperwork out to the hangar and get everything cleaned up out there for Saturday.  Then I will remove all cowlings, inspections panels, and the seats so when the inspector arrives he can get right to work. I hear it takes about 4 hours.