Then I went back up to Washington and work and Alan stayed behind in Cloverdale. He spent the week flying off the required hours and making small adjustments to throttle, prop pitch, flaps…

The time had come to fly! We went down to Cloverdale the weekend before the 4th of July for the big event. Alan was all ready to take the first flight, but as it happened, there was a very experienced test pilot, Paul Reinders in the area that weekend and we decided to ask him if he would take it up the first time. After talking with Michael and Eric, Paul agreed to take our plane up for its maiden flight. There were no problems and he appeared to really enjoy flying the plane. We got a lot of very nice videos and pictures of that first flight as Paul is a very experienced pilot and gave us the opportunities for great shots from the ground.

After getting our airworthiness certification it was time to transition our “project” into an airplane. At some point during this adventure, each of us experienced the same thing; we stepped back and looked at the fruits of our labors and saw that it had changed from parts and pieces to an aircraft!

First flight and Fly-off

Alan took it up himself later on that day and yet again the next morning. I went up in a chase plane with Eric and took some nice pictures of Alan flying our plane over the Cloverdale area.

Flight home

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