Not this year.I have thousands, but now that we've moved from airframe to systems they're mostly close-ups of arcane details. It's a challenge to select pics of general interest.

Dave whats your best guess in first flight? It seems you are getting much closer!

The electric anti-icing system precludes landing lights in the leading edges, but I like these better anyway.Multiple LEDs, on both main gear, each LED far more reliable than a bulb, throw tons of light. They are so bright that pilots complain about the light on the back of the (black) prop blades, so we install a little shield (carbon, of course) to shadow the prop.

I worry that your Evo is more of a project than an airplane. I don't mean to be harsh, but I have some expertise in this area after taking 27 years to complete my Lancair 235 project. For the first 20 years, everything had to be perfect. Eventually I started to realize that if I didn't change my attitude, I would be dead before I finished the plane. So I sucked it up and became more "goal oriented". I started discriminating between "Stuff that had to be done before first flight" and "Stuff that could be done after I got the plane flying". I'm glad I did that. At age 70+, how much longer I'll be able to fly is an open question. They say that there are two kinds of builders: Those that love the building and those who build in order to fly. I can see that you love the building part - you're doing a superb job. My only advice is to keep the ultimate goal of flying the plane you built in your mind at all times. Please forgive my bluntness and build on...

When you run out of excuses not to?

Wow, Mark. Really?!

Probably more along the lines of "when there's nothing left to do, might as well go fly"

I completely understand that statement but I think maybe Dave took it the wrong way. When you get close to flying, you start to get worried about a lot of things. Did I build the plane correctly? Did I forget something? Will the engine run as advertised? Am I mentally prepared? I don't know what Dave plans to do but I made my first flight myself (solo) when I ran out of excuses not to. My wife watched me take off. She told me later that she cried.

Kinda like when my kids (now adults) would ask "are we there yet ?", my standard response was "you'll know when you stop asking ... "

+1

Another builder told me once "perfection is the enemy of finished".

After four years of what I thought would be a two year project, I had to come to terms with this.

What makes it challenging is when you haven't built one before so you're really not sure where the line is with respect to perfect, acceptable, good enough, close enough, etc.

Hi Dave,

You’re doing great. Keep the faith. You’ll get there. If it were easy everyone would do it.

Boy, that's the truth. I know of another Lancair builder who is doing an absolutely beautiful job. His workshop looks like a surgical suite. He'll take a month to do something that should take only a few hours. I have tried all along to give him moral support but recently he stopped responding to my emails. I take that to mean that he's thrown in the towel.

You guys are seriously busting Dave’s chops when he’s only 2 years into a build of this complexity? Hell, I’m 9 years into an RV build! For those that haven’t done it, building an airplane is a life changing amount of work. When people ask me when I’ll be done I answer “Tuesday”.

Robert

I know guys who build airplanes and guys who build motorcycles. Some love the process and some love having an airplane or bike that is perfect.

It is not for people who want a bike or airplane now...that is what controller/Trade a Plane and eBay are for.

If the guy wants to spend a decade making it perfect, that’s what he wants to do and he is writing the checks, I am not going to be critical.

If he was taking years to restore a 1947 V tail to perfection, we would thank him. Same personality. They love the process of making something perfect.

I do know that if I buy an experimental, I want one built by a perfectionist like this who had no limit on his time spent making it right.

KJ

I completely understand that statement but I think maybe Dave took it the wrong way.