Days 14 & 15--we are "airworthy!"

Hello everyone!

Today was a big day--the FAA inspectors came and issued us our airworthiness certificate!  The funny thing is, we're still not quite ready to fly yet...
...there's a saying in the Kitplane-building business: "You're 90% done, with 90% to go!"  That's not quite true, but the finish work to get the last details on the airplane sorted have taken most of the last three days.  We've worked 12-hour days all week this week, and still have work to do before our first flight tomorrow!
 Here are some pictures of the progress we've made:

This is the tunnel cover that goes over the boost pump and rudder cables.

We have seats!  The seats are about 9” of foam—extremely comfortable!  We didn’t have to fabricate these—all the leather work is done here in the facility.

Tracy spent a lot of time today working on the horizontal stabilizer tips.  These little pieces keeps a tight airflow in front of the elevator counterweights

Here is a picture of the completed left tip.  Again, it doesn’t look like much once completed, but it’s got to be perfectly measured, then Tracy installed flush-riveted nutplates in the horizontal stabilizer by dimpling the metal.

Meanwhile, I was working on the landing light lens covers, which required a similar process.  Grind them to size, flush-rivet nutplates inside the cove, then countersink holes for the flush screws into the fiberglass.

Our fairings are now one piece, joined by Cabo, which is a fiberglass paste.  Tomorrow morning we are going to reinforce the structure with a fiberglass layup.  The fiberglass cures so fast once it sets that we can glass at around 0830 and be flying by 1130.

The hatch inlays on the fuselage also require flush-riveted nutplates.  You can clearly see the gold-covered rivets in this picture, bracketing the hole for the hatch cover screws.

The leather crew brought us our bulkhead cover—nice!

Yep, we have to have a tail number to go fly!  This is temporary vinyl, but our Sportsman’s tail number will forever be N7815E.

Every airplane is required to have a placard on it with the builder’s name and serial number.  This is ours.  We didn’t get to choose the number—just lucky I suppose!  Fortune Favors the Bold…

While we've been finishing up, it's been a madhouse around here with a whole lot else going on!  Here are some other photos we took yesterday and today:

Our friends the Skeesicks came by to say hello!  Thanks you guys!

Another Sportsman owner stopped in to get help with a modification to his floats.  He put an electric kayak motor on the back of his left float, in order to water taxi under power.  Another modification that makes complete sense but would be very difficult to get done on a certified airplane.

Here is the kayak motor up close.  It will push the Sportsman—backward or forward—at a leisurely 2-ish mph.

Glasair is extremely busy with Oshkosh prep.  At the end of the day the hangar looks like a full aircraft carrier deck.  Ours is the one closest.

Well, folks, according to the FAA, we’ve got ourselves an airplane!  Now it just needs a name…and to go flying!  First flight is tomorrow--we can't wait!!