I found this to be a good article.
https://www.aviationconsumer.com/aircraftreviews/post-repair-flights-recognize-the-risks/
Focus is of course not on builders, but we probably have more owners than builders in the RV world today, so these tips would be relevant.
• Arrange to pick up the airplane anytime other than a Friday afternoon—and with enough time left so that you can get it back into the shop if you discover any sort of a problem on the test flight.
• Be by yourself under conditions where you will not be interrupted.
• Talk over the work done on the airplane and any things that are being deferred.
• Do a thorough preflight—the kind that you’d do on a checkride with the examiner watching (or after you see people leaning all over your airplane on the ramp at a fly-in breakfast). Don’t limit it to the stuff on the airplane checklist—check everything, especially anything that was the subject of the work or that had to be moved, removed or disconnected to do the work.
• If you get interrupted, start the preflight over.
• Check the stuff that you probably won’t need for the flight such as the pitot heat and external lighting. You’re at the shop. Now is the time to find out if something isn’t working and get it fixed.
• Throughout the time you are talking with the technician, preflighting or doing the test flight, recognize that any distraction or feeling that you are being hurried is a red flag. Slow down.
• Inside the cabin: Start with a smell check. Former airshow pilot and current A&P, AI and proprietor of Northern Air on the Boundary County Idaho Airport, Dave Parker, told me about getting a whiff of fuel after maintenance. He stopped everything and found that a fuel line had been disconnected as part of the work. It had not been properly reconnected and was leaking.
• Also inside the cabin before strapping in: Parker suggested making sure that all of the seatbelts are fastened—he has seen them jammed into seat stops and buckles laying right where a pilot’s hand may need to go in normal operations, such as beneath the manual gear retraction lever in older Mooneys.
• Control check. Make sure the controls—and trim tabs—move freely and in the correct direction. Dave Parker counseled us when doing a control check, to start by boxing the yoke or stick to get all the way into the corners of full travel and then take some time to move the controls through intermediate areas of travel.
https://www.aviationconsumer.com/aircraftreviews/post-repair-flights-recognize-the-risks/
Focus is of course not on builders, but we probably have more owners than builders in the RV world today, so these tips would be relevant.
• Arrange to pick up the airplane anytime other than a Friday afternoon—and with enough time left so that you can get it back into the shop if you discover any sort of a problem on the test flight.
• Be by yourself under conditions where you will not be interrupted.
• Talk over the work done on the airplane and any things that are being deferred.
• Do a thorough preflight—the kind that you’d do on a checkride with the examiner watching (or after you see people leaning all over your airplane on the ramp at a fly-in breakfast). Don’t limit it to the stuff on the airplane checklist—check everything, especially anything that was the subject of the work or that had to be moved, removed or disconnected to do the work.
• If you get interrupted, start the preflight over.
• Check the stuff that you probably won’t need for the flight such as the pitot heat and external lighting. You’re at the shop. Now is the time to find out if something isn’t working and get it fixed.
• Throughout the time you are talking with the technician, preflighting or doing the test flight, recognize that any distraction or feeling that you are being hurried is a red flag. Slow down.
• Inside the cabin: Start with a smell check. Former airshow pilot and current A&P, AI and proprietor of Northern Air on the Boundary County Idaho Airport, Dave Parker, told me about getting a whiff of fuel after maintenance. He stopped everything and found that a fuel line had been disconnected as part of the work. It had not been properly reconnected and was leaking.
• Also inside the cabin before strapping in: Parker suggested making sure that all of the seatbelts are fastened—he has seen them jammed into seat stops and buckles laying right where a pilot’s hand may need to go in normal operations, such as beneath the manual gear retraction lever in older Mooneys.
• Control check. Make sure the controls—and trim tabs—move freely and in the correct direction. Dave Parker counseled us when doing a control check, to start by boxing the yoke or stick to get all the way into the corners of full travel and then take some time to move the controls through intermediate areas of travel.