As many of you know, I called the Greensboro FSDO and scheduled an Airworthiness 

Inspection.  It was originally scheduled for last Friday, but got postponed due

to inclement weather.  Wednesday turned out to be a shirt-sleeve day, and

perfect for an inspection inside a large, open hangar.  When I called for the 

inspection, I was expecting to get a date a couple months out.  The quickness

of the schedule took me by surprise, but being the gung-ho guy I am, I went

for it.

Three inspectors showed up.  Mike Foster, who I had been working with, and

seemed mostly concerned with paperwork. Tim, who did most of the hardware

inspection.  And Mark, who seemed to enjoy looking at airplanes the most.

Don't bother to bring donuts and coffee.  Those guys were there for hard

line business.  Wish I could get my $23 back from Dunkin Donuts.  Coffee

was crap anyway 8*)

They want the airplane in a state where they can write you the AW and you

can immediately taxi it out to fly.  Tim seemed to imply that any

modifications after issuing the certificate would require contacting the

FSDO and flying another 40 hours.  I found that a bit drastic, and I'm

still not sure how it will work out (If I add a nose wheel fairing, do I

have to go back into the test flight area for 40 hours?  How about if I

change my intercom?  Does the simplest of issues requiring correction

during flight testing require the clock to reset?).  Tim's approach was

reasonable, so I'm sure it will all be fine.

I had a LOT of cotter pins missing and nylock nuts that weren't tightened

down.  Most of this was due to not wanting to waste cotter pins and nylock

nuts on parts that needed to be constantly removed during the building

process.  I probably would have caught most of them if I'd had two months

between when I called for the inspection appointment and when they came

out, which is what I was expecting.  "We can be there Friday" took me by

surprise, and in retrospect I should have explained my expectation and

begged for more time.  Then I could have gotten several pre-inspections

and have been ready.  Recommendation: Get several pre-inspections so that

you are ready.

The biggest deficiency, by far, was that I do not have my final propeller.

My "first attempt" prop has some shop rash on it (tow bars are rough on

propellers when you don't remove them before cranking), and I was quite

open with the fact that I had no intention of flying with it.  That was a

clear violation of the "ready to fly" rule, and when I think about it a

moment, a clear violation of common sense.  The point of the Phase 1 is to

make sure the major parts of the airplane are working properly together.

The point of 40hours instead of 25 for non-certified prop/engine

combinations is to make sure they work together in particular.  How can

you test them together, when they obviously haven't been fabricated?  Duh.

At the end, Mike was wanting to write the Repairman's Certificate for me.

All the pictures I've taken during the build process running as a

slideshow on a laptop whil the inspection was going on made it clear that

I had built this contraption.  I could tell that Mike didn't want to leave

me empty handed; but, he needed the airplane's certification date for that

form, so he was blocked.  I point that out to say that these guys actually

WANT to give you the legal pass to go fly.  My project was simply NOT

ready to be called an airplane.

I've got a list of fixes to complete.  That give me some focus to punch

through and git 'er done.  It won't be long now.  This would have only taken

one visit if I had:

1) Lined up some pre-inspections by people who had been through this before.

2) Been honest with myself and asked for more time to get things complete.

3) Understood beforehand that "complete" means "completed".