Annual inspection: done, done, and done

It was pretty easy this year. The normal chore of de-paneling was made easy with the new cordless drill that I bought for building the RV-12. Only a couple of problems were found by the inspector, none of which took more than a few minutes to fix. A leaky brake caliper was repaired with an O-ring that I already had stashed away from the last time I had a leaky brake caliper. The secret is to by a lot of things that are really cheap, like O-rings, even though you only need one at the time. It's the shipping that's expensive, so always buy more than you need! I already had the new tires on hand too, since I had considered changing them a few months ago, but decided to wait until the annual when everything would be all disassembled anyway.

It will all get put back together tonight and be ready to go by the weekend.

The weekend is, of course, forecast to be rainy.

While I have been on my extended building and flying hiatus, I have been occupying myself in the virtual world by flying combat missions on a PC flight simulator. I just recently started flying the F-86 jet that was the inspiration for the paint job on Papa Golf. It's been fun to practice formation flying in a consequence free environment. Consider this brief flight, for example:



I got a little too close to my flight leader. Vertical stabilizer? Meh. Who needs it??

Note: I am amazed at the quality and depth of that simulator, but what is truly mind boggling is its cost. Are you ready for this? It cost $9.99. Less than $10! Simply astonishing.