June 2026 – RV-14 Build

Airworthiness Inspection

Posted on June 6, 2026June 7, 2026 by Neal

Today was a big milestone, the airplane received its airworthiness certificate, and operating limitations! Rick Aldrich was the DAR who conducted the inspection and issued the paperwork, and he has been great to work with. with this step complete, the airplane is legally allowed to start phase 1 test flying!

In terms of the inspection itself, I was pleased that Rick didn’t find much, because that was reassuring. He had good advice on how to maintain the airplane, what to look for over time, and where common problems can show up. He was very complimentary of the airplane and the quality of work, which was reassuring to hear.

The items on the “squawk list” include:

Removing some spiral wrap from the engine compartment, as it’s not going to survive the heat. I used some to protect the engine sensor wiring from the sharp edges of the baffling.
Consider drilling a safety hole in the oil breather line to prevent engine problems if icing were to block the end of the breather tube
Add some spiral wrap to the wiring coming out of the sticks where it enters the fuselage, as the constant stick motion makes this area liable to chafe wires
Confirm with Vans that I don’t need a bolt through one hole in the spar. It’s used for tricycle gear aircraft, and not used on the taildragger, but given how critical the spar is, I want Vans to confirm this.
Install a plug to cover an exposed D-Sub connector in the tail section. Because I haven’t installed a yaw dampener, the autopilot wiring harness has a connector with nothing attached. FOD could lodge itself in there over time and short the autopilot wiring.

With the inspection out of the way, we went over the paperwork, including the operating limitations. My phase 1 test area is defined as a 25 nautical mile radius from the Julian VOR. This includes Ramona airport and its airspace, but the majority of that area is out east over the mountains, and the eastern most area is over the Anza Borrego desert. Test flying over mountainous terrain is not ideal, but there’s no getting around it. There are several flat meadows tucked away in the mountains and a half dozen airports/airstrips in case of an emergency.

The test flying phase can be done with a qualified additional pilot, so I’m planning to fly with Donnie for the first couple of flights. When Phase 1 concludes, the airplane is legally allowed to fly anywhere in the US (and beyond) that other GA aircraft can fly. Phase 1 can be accomplished in one of two ways, the “old way” where the Hobbs meter had to hit 40 hours, or the “new way” where a formal flight test plan is conducted and successfully accomplished. The EAA sell a test plan which I have purchased, and this is what I’m planning to follow. It’s written by test pilots and is very thorough, and each test builds on the previous tests until all aspects of the airplane’s limits have been documented.

I now need to reassemble the airplane, as all the inspection panels have been removed, and get myself ready to fly.

Phase 1 test area. In the bottom left of the circle, above the name “Poway” is the Ramona airport. Note the large blue numbers on the chart “69”, “71” etc. these indicate the highest terrain in that sector, i.e. 6,900 and 7,100 feet. Ramona is 1,400 feet.

Phase 1 test area shown in red. Note the 11,000 foot mountain north of the test area. These are some impressive mountains.

Fire extinguisher mount

Posted on June 4, 2026 by Neal

Today I made a mount for the fire extinguisher. I carefully considered a few places in the cockpit to mount the extinguisher, the decided to put it on the flap motor mount. I carefully measured clearances, and then found the right hardware to ensure the bolts didn’t interfere with the flap motor arm.

I used some 0.06 inch aluminum sheet to make a big doubler, and secured with 1/8 rivets. The extinguisher mount is secured with 6, AN4-3A bolts and some (relatively) slim lock nuts.

Drilled and dimpled holes for riveting the doubler plate and for the 1/4 inch bolts that will hold the mount

The inside view showing doubler plate and bolts with washers and nuts

Rigging

Posted on June 2, 2026 by Neal

Today I spent some time measuring and adjusting the flight controls. My goal was to get everything rigged within the Vans specs, and to correct an issue where the flap and aileron training edges were misaligned.

I downloaded the Vans Specs and copied them into a spreadsheet, then measured the various deflections using a digital level. Note, the elevators are not well aligned, so I measured the neutral point as the middle of the left and right elevators.

Everything measured in-spec initially, but I wanted to fix the trailing edge problem. This came about because I used the wing-tip template to set the aileron neutral point. A few years ago Vans changed the plans, and they now recommend ignoring the template, and simply putting the flap in the up position, then setting the trailing edges of the ailerons to be aligned with the flaps. I had to disconnect the for-aft pushrods, unwind one of the rod end bearings one full turn (on both sides), and the alignment came out perfect.

ELT Self Test

Posted on June 1, 2026June 2, 2026 by Neal

This weekend I was busy with many tasks, most of them small and not newsworthy – just things I want to get done ahead of an airworthiness inspection. However, one important thing I had not done, was test the ELT. To be honest, I was kind of scared of testing it, and had installed it a long time ago thinking I would one day figure out how to test the thing. In hindsight, I should have learned all about it back then and performed the test. I ended up with a couple of problems that took an annoyingly long time to solve.

Testing an ELT is tricky, because setting off a locator beacon can trigger search and rescue operations, so you want to make sure you understand the rules and regulations, and the operations of the unit. Unlike older ELTs, this one will transmit aircraft info including GPS coordinates to a satellite constellation. I started by reading the installation manual (I had read it before, but needed a refresh). The first thing was to register the unit with NOAA, which is compulsory before triggering the signal, so I went ahead and did that. Derek, if you are reading this – fyi, you are one a small group of emergency contacts. There are a set of tests that require equipment I don’t have, so I skipped that and moved to the ELT self-test.

The ELT’s interface. The antenna port is at the top. The switch allows someone to manually activate the device, or to perform the self-test. Next to the switch is the LED which indicates the state the unit is in. The 15 pin D-sub port connects the unit to ship power, nav signal, the remote switch, and the buzzer.

The self does an internal system check, then broadcasts on 121.5 for two cycles, tests that it’s receiving Nav info, and sounds the buzzer. If anything is wrong during the test, the LED flashes and number of flashes indicates the error code. The annoying limitation on testing the device is that it’s only allowed during the first 5 minutes of each hour. That means if you have a problem, you really don’t have time to troubleshoot it before that time expires and you have to wait another hour to test if you have resolved the issue.

On my first attempt to run a self-test, I waited for the hour to strike, pushed the self-test button, and absolutely nothing happened. Hmm. I decided to take the unit out, remove the battery, and give it a more thorough inspection. Everything looked as it should, and I reinstalled the battery etc, still wondering why it wasn’t working. As soon as I plugged the battery into the receptacle on the circuit board, the LED lit up and it beeped. Then it kept beeping! I quickly consulted the manual and saw a warning that connecting the battery can sometimes activate the ELT. The fix is to turn it to “On” (activate it), then back to “Arm”. This quickly resolved the issue, but I still accidentally transmitted for a few seconds.

Backside of the circuit board with some QA markings

With that figured out, I reinstalled everything, waiting for the next hour, and performed the self test again. This time the unit beeped, and then gave a couple of different error codes. Hmm. Consulting the manual

I ended up pulling apart the D-sub connector and inspecting the wiring going into the ELT and buzzer. I discovered the buzzer power wire was in the wrong position, but everything else seemed to check out. I confirmed the correct wiring at the remote switch on the panel, and couldn’t find any other issues. I put it back together, waited for the right time and retested. Still an error.

After some online research, I discovered that while the ELT supports several different formats of data from the Nav system, when it’s programmed, it’s set for one format – it doesn’t dynamically switch between protocols and baud rates. With that info, I went into the avionics configuration and found there were dozens of different available formats that the G3X can output, and the one selected for the transponder was probably not the right one. I adjusted to the “Aviation” format, re-ran the self-test and happily the self-test passed!

Unfortunately the buzzer still didn’t sound, so I need to troubleshoot the buzzer. Next time I’m at the hangar I’ll test the buzzer manually with a battery to verify that it’s actually functional. If it is, then there is likely a problem with the wiring – perhaps a bad ground somehow – or the buzzer power is configured to come from another pin on the ELT. The least likely problem is the ELT itself not supplying power. I really hope that’s not the case, as I don’t want to have to replace the unit at this stage.

Update: on June 1 I was able to successfully test the buzzer. The issue was a mis-pinned power wire (pin 15 instead of 8), and once corrected the buzzer worked as expected.

Month: June 2026