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Some of these things are sort of obvious.

1. On the autopilot, if your CDI is more than 1/2 scale deflected, when you select NAV mode, the autopilot will not change modes.
2. On the autopilot, the scroll wheel for vertical speed has a detent for every one hundred feet. You can roll the wheel by feel and count the clicks to set it to what you want.
3. If you click the VS (vertical speed) button on the autopilot when you are already ascending or descending, it will already be set to that rate — no need to roll the scroll wheel up or down.
4. In general, for safety reasons you should use Indicated Air Speed (IAS) (aka FLC) for climbing and Vertical Speed (VS) for descending. Having said that, I find that IAS tends to hunt a little compared to VS.
5. The proper technique for disengaging the autopilot when you breakout on an approach is to press the AP button on the autopilot rather than to click the AP Disconnect button on the stick. The reason is that if you just use the AP Disconnect button it will also turn of your flight director.
6. Make sure you have a checklist item to confirm that the yaw damper is off prior to taxiing (and after you have landed). I have more than once while taxiing found the rudder panels seemed to be bound up and found that the Yaw Damper was on.
7. When you are inbound to an airport and load an approach, you should almost always LOAD it, and almost never LOAD & ACTIVATE it. When you do the latter, the airplane is going to immediately head toward the Initial Approach Fix (IAF). This is usually not what you want and not what the controller is expecting.
8. While not as sexy as flying a full approach, Vectors-to-Final (VTF) is a much more common scenario. It is super important to practice using VTF before you need it so you understand what it does.
9. When you enter a radio frequency into the G3X, there is no need to enter the first digit (one). For example, to enter the frequency 121.9, you simply enter 219 and it automagically prepends the one for you.
10. On the GTN650xi, when you build a flight plan, you can’t directly add an airway to the flight plan. Instead, you enter the point where you plan to enter the airway then highlight that point and select the on-screen menu button. From there you will see an option to add an airway. When you click on that on-screen button, it will show you all the airways that include that waypoint. Select the airway you want and then select the point where you plan to get off that airway. Not super intuitive — I suspect it is a holdover for the GNS days.

These were taken in very early December 2025. Probably another two and a half months before the plane is done.

Before I had even bought the new airplane, I knew I where I would want to have it painted. My RV-14A was painted by Evoke in Gadsden, AL back in 2021. They did a magnificent job. I definitely wanted this new plane to get the same treatment. The only problem is that they have a two year waiting list.

I reached out to Jonathan McCormick at Evoke hoping to get a little sooner spot since I was a two time customer. Turns out that Lester had already reserved a spot for the fall of 2025 and I could keep that spot. Woo hoo!

I won’t sugar coat it, Evoke costs a lot of money and is not fast. Having said that, there is no doubt in my mind that they are totally worth every penny and the long wait. They are meticulous in their prep work and are true artists with paint. There is a reason that the planes they paint win awards at the big airshows (Osh Kosh and Sun n Fun) every year.

Besides the great results that they create there is another reason why I would never take my airplane to any other paint shop: Customer Service. I got to work with Autumn Baugh who is one of their very talented designers. She offered lots of suggestions and even was willing to tell me when one of my ideas wouldn’t look good. She sent me countless revisions and made all the tiny changes I asked for. When it was time to take the plane to Alabama, I got to meet with her and Jonathan and review everything. We had a great lunch at Local Joe’s BBQ. Jonathan commented that my new plane was one of the best RV-10 builds he had ever seen (I wonder if he says that to every customer).

BTW, Evoke has a YouTube channel and they do some really cool videos that document what it takes to paint airplanes. Check it out: https://www.youtube.com/@EvokeAviation

Here are pictures of the airplane in Gadsden (Sept 2025). I expect it to be ready by February 2026.

Local Joe’s BBQ is really good.

In case you are wondering what the paint job will look like…

I asked them to use the same colors and scheme that they used on my RV-14A. I made a few very minor changes but it will look almost exactly like my old airplane. While perhaps not as edgy as some of the designs they have done, I really like the classic under-stated design.

The RV-14A had a two screen G3X system with the GTN-650xi navigator. The autopilot was the GFC-500. It is an amazing system that I came to really love during the three plus years I flew with it. Fantastic capabilities and a modern user friendly interface.

The RV-10 has a three screen G3X system with the same navigator and autopilot.

I have a couple hundred flight hours with the certified Garmin G-1000. It is clunky and un-user-friendly. Lots of ways to get lost in the interface. Several inconsistencies such as the map zoom feature which is exactly backward from the entire rest of the world. In it’s defense, it is much older than G3X. I think it first showed up around 2005. The G3X came out in 2014 (I think).

I briefly toyed with the idea of buying a recent vintage Cirrus SR-22, but the cost, on-going maintenance costs and the G-1000 avionics made buying the RV-10 a much better choice.

There have been rumors that some follow-on to the G3X was in the works but Garmin is not saying anything. The G3X is still remarkably good after eleven years. Of course, I would buy the newest thing if it is drop-in replaceable but that is just because I am a tech nerd.

There are only two very minor issues with the panel in the RV-10:

• There is not enough lighting down low to illuminate the switches. I plan to fix this with a row of blue LEDs mounted under the lip of the upper dash (idea stolen directly from Jon Mulder).
• The flaps control is on the panel rather than on the stick where it belongs. I don’t plan to fix that one.

The builder is Lester Merrill based out of Marion, Kentucky. I met him through a mutual friend (Jon Mulder) who is also an airplane builder. Jon who was based out of Clarksville, TN, was also building an RV-10. He and Lester lived an hour apart by car so they helped each other on their airplane projects.

Jon and I have been friends for several years. I often described him as the most detail-oriented guy I had ever met. One day he called me and said that if I thought he was detail-oriented, I had to meet Lester who he said was without a doubt the most detail OCD person he had ever met. Seemed a bit hard to believe coming from Jon.

One day, I decided to fly to TN to visit Jon and check out his RV-10 build. He suggested I take a look at Lester’s airplane which had recently had its first flight. Seemed innocent enough. At this point, I wasn’t really shopping for an airplane…

The airplane was stunning in both the quality of build and the attention to fine details. For example, the doors on most RV-10s are usually a bit rough and don’t always have the best fit. Lester spent untold hours on the doors to make them perfect.

Lester had spared no expense and had used the collective wisdom of dozens of previous RV-10 builders to create the ultimate RV-10. I had already owned an RV-10 (2007-2015) and had flown it for close to 800 hours. This airplane made that one look blah by comparison. I complimented Lester on his fine build but still didn’t really think I would own it someday.

Here are a few pictures of the airplane during construction.

He and I took a brief flight together and it brought back memories of my old RV-10. Over the next few weeks, Lester and I began talking about me buying it from him. We haggled over price but ultimately agreed to do the deal in early May 2025.

Here are a few photos from the day a friend and I drove to KY to pick up the airplane.

He said that if I bought his airplane he would immediately start building a new and even better one. Yeah, right. I figured he was just saying that to get me to buy his plane, but I can confirm that he is already building the tail of his next RV-10.

The RV-14A is an almost perfect airplane. I loved everything about it. It was fun (and reasonably easy) to build. It is a joy to fly. So WHY did I sell it you may ask.

The answer is pretty simple. It was worth significantly more than I had spent to build it. I had several offers to buy it and I took one. I really liked the gentleman that bought it and we have kept in touch since he bought it in May 2025. We even had dinner together at Osh Kosh. He told me that he absolutely loved the RV-14A. He said that his favorite things about it were that it did many of the things that his Bonanza did, was just as fast and way cheaper to own. By the way, he was the president of the American Bonanza Society.

As part of the sale of the airplane, we agreed that I could keep the N662F tail number and he would change the airplane to N662E. I will have a whole post on how difficult that was to do (mostly due to the incredibly obtuse and inefficient paperwork system that the FAA has created).

I flew about 300 hours in the RV-14A over a bit shy of four years. Let me repeat: it is a great airplane. So great that I convinced a good friend to start building one.

Within weeks of selling my RV-14A, I agreed to buy a brand new RV-10 from the builder in Kentucky. Most of my posts moving forward will be about the RV-10 which will have the same N662F tail number.

It’s Thanksgiving (November 26th) and I flew the plane for the first time this morning.

The weather was very nice (9 mph cross wind).

I only flew .25 hours – just enough to check temps and pressures.

I need to adjust the idle – it idles too slowly.

I also have to fix the flaps up stop – the motor continues to run after they have gotten all the way to the top – until the VPX times out and stops them. Should be an easy fix.

I have been working hard to get ready for the inspection. It seems that I fix a couple more things then find one more thing to do.

Recent accomplishments:

– Tightened all the fittings firewall forward and in the wings and tail.

– Got engine idle speed and idle mixture set.

-Began work on the empennage fairing – a lot more work then you might think.

-Installed the firewall pass through fittings

-Worked on the canopy seals

-Installed the heat shield on the inside of the lower cowling

I did notice a very small leak in the passenger side brake pedals. I will need to remove the brake fluid, tighten some of the fittings and then add fluid back to the system. Hopefully only an hour of work for two people.

After multiple attempts to use micro-molex and molex connectors for the tail light, yaw trim and the sticks I have decided to try a different connector style called Deutch DTM. They look promising though a bit pricy ($20 per connector).

The problem with the strobe lights turned out to be two wires that were accidentally swapped by the avionics shop. The strobe lights were connected to the standby alternator and vice versa. John and I figured it out and got it fixed. One other lesson, that $40 tool is completely unnecessary, a standard paperclip works just as well.

I mounted the data plate – it looks good.

I nearly have the yaw trim in the tail sorted out – I had to replace the wires leading to the motor because they were too short. This wasn’t actually as difficult as anticipated and will be better in the long run.

I finally got the registration for N662F from the FAA.

The biggest things left are mostly on the canopy and basic cleaning.

Speaking of cleaning – my car is back in the garage for the first time in about three months. I moved the airplane out to the hangar about 3 weeks ago but had lots of miscellaneous tools and parts on the floor in the garage. It was rainy and cool today – a perfect day to work around the house. It took a couple hours, but I was able to get all that stuff out of the garage and Tessie is back inside.