Well, after 23 months of construction the Coyote finally received her airworthiness certificate!  The process was completely painless but that didn’t stop me from fretting over it anyway.  The inspector was an FAA employee from the Fresno Flight Standards District Office.  He was professional, polite, and didn’t try to trip me up on any regulations.  If I didn’t know a given rule or regulation, he patiently explained it and encouraged me to read up on it.

The process went like this.  He spent the first 20 minutes or so examining the airplane.  Half of that was on the engine alone.  He asked me to address a few issues that he found, none of which where flight safety related.  Then we spent the next 20 minutes going over the paperwork.  He read my flight limitations to me, this took most of the time.  Then we signed the paperwork and that was it!

The issues or squawks he found were:

• Engine instruments not marked with operational limitations (max temp, max RPM, etc.)
• Emergency Locator Transmitter did not have a battery installation date or date last tested on it.
• Loose coolant return line.
• The letters in the word “EXPERIMENTAL” which is displayed on both doors was not in a large enough font.

Once these are address I am legal to fly the airplane.  It would be legal but not prudent, I still need insurance.  That check was mailed out today so that is the last item I am waiting on.

Look forward to a first flight report soon!