Registering Your Homebuilt HOBBS 1814.5 hrs

I want to offer a few quick tips and my insight into starting the paperwork dance with the FAA. First and foremost, I started with this very helpful checklist published by the EAA homebuilders site. Reading through this, you will see multiple helpful links to documents you will need. Nice work EAA!

Specifically, lets jump right to the "registration" section. Two things to keep in mind, having an N-number reserved doesn't mean your homebuilt is registered with the FAA. Secondly, until your kit is registered, you cant get your airworthiness certification from the DAR/FSDO, they wont even show up until you have this completed.

You'll notice the list says to start this process 90 days in advance, while the FAA Advisory Circular (AC) 20-27G states 60-120 days in advance. I thought 60 days should suffice, consequently I mailed mine on March 13th. I just got off the phone with the FAA representative today and she said she would be mailing this back to me next week. I'm a little confused why the large difference in timeframe??...but I'll be thrilled if this actually happens, I may have dodged a bullet since I thought I was going to be waiting on paperwork to fly. The bottom line is, my advice is get this done as soon as possible. There really is no penalty to doing it early as long as their isn't tax implications to contend with in your state.

These are the steps you need to take to get this process started:

1. Send an email to Cynthia (as of 5/18/13) at Van's (cynthias@vansaircraft.com) requesting 'bill of sale' information from Van's, and specifically your 8050-2. She will email you some forms to fill out and get notarized (check with your bank or credit union...they usually do this free of charge for customers), which you will scan and email back to her. She then mails an original signed copy of your 8050-2 to you. They need this by Thursday each week to mail out on Friday. Expect all of this to take 5-7 days total.
2. Go to your local FSDO to obtain a 8050-1 form. You can't get this form via the internet and must physically get it from them since it is in duplicate form. Fill it out and detach the pink copy for yourself.
3. Fill out form 8050-88 (available on the internet) and get it notarized.
4. Mail this entire packet (all three forms...originals, not copies) to the FAA in Oklahoma, make sure everything is correct and signed...standard 'error checking' to prevent delays.

This isn't all of it by any means, but these are the first steps...I'll post more as I work my way through the process.

Edit 05/15/13: Check out the follow up post for some "gotcha's"