Bill Scanlon’s RV-14 | El Dorado Hills, CA RV-14 #140971

Bill Scanlon’s RV-14 flew for the first time. Here’s more:

What a feeling to build and fly my own airplane!

My first flight in RV-14, N4014 occurred early morning July 17, 2025. In June of 2021, my daughter Caroline and I started this project under the careful guidance of Synergy Air in Eugene, OR. After completing the empennage, I moved the project to an extra garage at my home. I worked there until the summer of 2024 when we moved it up to a hangar at Placerville, KPVF.

Early in the build I was introduced to a group of fellow RV-14 builders in the Sacramento area. What a fantastic group of people, always willing to share lessons learned and tips from their build experience. I want to give special credit to two of the folks from that group, Rob Lasater, currently flying the RV-14 he built several years ago, and Mehrdad Mehranpour, RV-7 builder, currently building his third RV-14. I couldn’t have done it without their help, encouragement and oversight along the way.

I was fortunate to be able to schedule a few days of transition training with Mike Seagar. I came away from that experience feeling confident for my first flight. Unfortunately, I underestimated how close I was to completion and signoff, almost a year came and went before the airplane was done, “90% done….” Rob stepped in and did some refresh, requalification flying with me in his RV-14, once again getting me ready to launch.

Along with the start from Synergy Air, I was fortunate to work with Classic Aero on the beautiful interior, Aerotronics on the fantastic panel, and Cascade Customs for the spectacular paint job.

The first flight and all of phase one was as anticipated, no surprises. Almost a year after that first flight I’m still sporting the “RV Grin.”