For a South Texas farm boy who spent countless hours pushing Varsol-soaked mops under the (now) Commemorative Air Force’s warbird oil drips in Harlingen, I was ecstatic: I simply could not wait to build my own Mustang. As I stood nervously on the ground, they took off. To enhance the GlaStar’s backcountry performance I have invested in some extended heavy-duty landing gear, some bigger tires, and a T3 tailwheel setup. For someone not used to small kit aircraft manufacturing, the “factory” was a bit underwhelming: a single hangar filled with Rocket parts and the promise of flight. In a life less planned than others, the Starduster came to me more by being at the right time and place than by sober reflection. Curtis Oil Drain; Curtis Drain Hose If fate is kind, perhaps it too will make it to Oshkosh someday. So many airplanes, so little time: over 1000 aircraft to choose from. The standard Kit is a taildragger, but a tricycle gear option is available. At about 30 cubic feet, it’s not only enormous for a Light Sport Aircraft (LSA), it’s enormous for any two seat airplane. I like doing gentle aerobatics. Possessed of only modest fabricating skills and buried under magazine deadlines, two kids, and a mortgage, there was no hope of building my own plane. These modifications are not ones I would recommend to a first-time builder, at least not the flap change, because such changes tend to complicate and extend the building process. N117WD first flew in April of 1993. American Aerolights Eagle is a kit airplane for amateur / homebuilt construction. Follow the process others have taken to get to their perfect airplane—and we look forward to seeing what you got when we see you at the airport! Well-Engineered, Proven Aluminum Construction. In fact, when I’m due for a biannual review, I make sure to remind my flight instructor, Daniel Wotring, not to expect any kind of break, just a descending nose-up mush and the stall horn blaring. Having eagerly worked my own way to a Private while in high school, but sidetracked by racing cars and motorcycles, my early piloting years were spent in rented Cessnas as I indulged the car habit and made a career of writing about them. Giving you this broad perspective is important; we want you to know as much about your choices as possible so that once you have settled into the cockpit of your new aircraft, the excitement never goes away. But at $2 million a pop, it’s never going to happen. Browse a wide selection of new and used Experimental/Homebuilt Aircraft for sale near you at Controller.com. David Paule rivets the left-hand skin of his RV-3B. On the day the weather actually let us fly, it took two hours plus to get home (another headwind). There are certainly many aircraft that are more capable in any one area (STOL, cost, speed, aerobatics, range, economy), but. With standard empty weight of only 170 lb (77 kg) - 225 lb (102 kg) it satisfies the Part 103 requirements; Its maximum speed is only 50 mph and its cruise speed is 35 mph. The price difference wasn’t intolerable, nor did I see any relevant safety risk between the Titan and Van’s lines. Return Home. I kept abreast of the T-51’s developments as I dreamed on. If ever I were going to get another airplane, it would be a Kolb Xtra or a Curtiss Junior, for the visibility. For most of us, it is the single biggest draw on our resources other than taking care of necessities and our families. I decided this scale tipped in the RV’s favor. In hindsight I did not fly that airplane all that well, but I sure did enjoy going places fast—fast relative to the helicopters I had been flying up until then. So, The Trailer Weenies were born. This is something every engine manufacturer should do. He was less than half a decade away from leaving the nest, and I wanted this to be a family affair. I am a designer and innovator both by profession and inclination. AircraftForSale.com has experimental and homebuilt aircraft for sale. He’d climb for about 15 or 20 minutes, shut down that motor, and soar. The Rocket opened a whole new dimension: the ability to simply pull back and fly over the top. Wings are good things to have, to be sure, but that plane has an excessive length of them, and they must be built, every foot of them. I’ve never flown one. That has been more expensive and more technically difficult than I expected, but experimental aviation is all about education and recreation. Learn how your comment data is processed. With pulled rivets for ease of assembly (solid rivets used in spar and spar box (completed at factory)) We have also taken over the service work as well. Cross-country stability is excellent, and the world looks great framed by those two wings and crossing stainless steel wires. Another very popular homebuilt aircraft is the Whitman W-8 Tailwind two-seat light plane. He flies an RV-8 that he built, an RV-3 that he built with his pilot wife, as well as a Dream Tundra they completed. First of all, I wanted the kit to help the builder (me) as much as possible: Match-drilled parts make the day, so I ruled out the RV-3, -4, and -6. Day in and day out, I get 177 knots TAS burning 7.7 gallons per hour. Even the Wright brothers were homebuilders, since they didnt rely on a factory to construct their airplanes. And yes, it’ll have a full-time big engine, and it’ll make those loud engine sounds that I no longer enjoy. Zooming up and over the clouds on sunset flights is glorious, and the big engine means you don’t have to look at your watch to see if anything is happening when you lay on the loud lever. Around that time I discovered www.VansAirForce.net, and Paul Dye and Louise Hose were discussing the construction of their RV-3B, and this got me interested in that airplane. One year it took The Dawn Patrol—Tom, me, Mark Pierce, and Dick Lemons—nine days to get home from an airshow only 108 miles away. At every show we’ve been to since then, a scenario similar to this one repeats itself: I’ll be sitting in my folding chair beside my canvas falcon when an airshow attendee walks up. Also learn how 10 of our regular contributors chose their own experimental aircraft. For my first attempt to build and fly an E/A-B, I chose the aircraft line with the higher percentage of successfully completed projects. Since we sold our first kit in 2001, many happy customers have experienced the thrill of the first flight in a real aircraft, built by their own hands. But I still didn’t have the brass ring—my own warbird. There are a lot of choices out there. I will not be your backseat wizzo.” Got it. I don’t recall how I became aware of the Titan T-51 Mustang kit, but I do remember suddenly spending a ton of time online reading and studying the aircraft…and what a kit! My heart sank and I saw the future unfolding with a steamed wife and evaporated Rocket dreams. An avid homebuilder, he began flying and working on airplanes as a teen, and has experience with a wide range of construction techniques and materials. One of the things I really enjoy is flying around puffy white clouds (at a legal distance, of course!). After 2069 Phantom backseat hours with zero forward visibility, the RV tip-up canopy’s totally unobstructed forward view was heavenly (proven to me when Joe Blank took me up for a factory demo ride in their RV-7A). You can build a plane in your garage? Twenty years ago, I started on my first airplane project, a Stoddard-Hamilton GlaStar. My advice is to build a plane within your means that does your mission well. I considered the T-51 against the Van’s fleet line (RV-7, -8, -9, etc.). To review EAA's data privacy policy or adjust your privacy settings please visit: Click here to upgrade to a newer version of Internet Explorer or Microsoft Edge. Aircraft Spruce supplies components for a wide variety of homebuilt aircraft and discount pilot supplies. We continue to maintain a very good stock of parts, and we order new stock every Friday from Australia to keep the shelves full. This led to wondering if I could homebuild a Junior, keeping the airplane’s grace and, yes, the span, but with slightly better visibility and a more recent engine. This plane has a high wing braced cabin is constructed with steel tubing and has a fabric covered exterior. However, as we built our wish list for a new airplane, speed was not the only criteria. I ought to know because I decided to build one, mostly to have a fulfilling project, and it has been that and more for sure. I knew my dream of a WW-I plane had to be a taildragger, so it was the natural plane for me to choose. Armed with the list, our search for a suitable aircraft commenced. Find Experimental/Homebuilt Aircraft from LANCAIR, VANS, and GLASAIR, and more. However, one of my fellow USAF officers introduced me to his Van’s RV-7A project. Our directory also includes homebuilt aircraft, many of them built from popular aircraft kits. His latest projects are a Xenos motorglider and a soon-to-be-started SubSonex personal jet. Have you ever had a time when you knew the next 15 minutes were going to set the course for a substantial impact on the rest of your life? I used the knowledge I gained during the project in my professional life, and I am currently working on the design of the Facetmobile’s long-delayed successor. Quickbuild Kit (FAA audited 51% kit) saves 400 hours. Yes, storage room is challenging, and you must accept both heat and cold (sometimes simultaneously), plus wind noise, the sun always on your face, and a “say again” attitude toward radio procedures, but airline captains give you thumbs up when you taxi by, and every gas stop is a social event. Murphy’s 50,000-sq. Now older, I sometimes wish for a plush, sit-inside cross-country ride, and whenever gas gets toward $5 a gallon, I think of my buddies with Rotaxes. It is also expensive enough that to afford it, I would have to sell my Sportsman, leaving me with a plane—a very nice plane to be sure—that would not be well suited to the cross-country flying that I often do. That motivation is as personal as the individual builder. For me, the Facetmobile project was as much about the experiment and the exploration of a new design approach as it was about building simply to have the airplane. Which aircraft kit shall we build? It might not be a Jabiru. In this wind, we would never have made it.”. What to build? The FAA allows for aircraft meeting certain weight, fuel, and airspeed requirements to be flown under Part 103 of the Federal Aviation Regulations (FAR). In 1994, I flew it from California to Oshkosh, where it earned an EAA award for innovative design and became the cover story for the October 1994 Sport Aviation. What’s more, I’d sold my fast composite trimaran sailboat. A chap there with a Sirocco (imagine a wooden RV-8, or as he likes to say, “The RV-8 is an aluminum Sirocco.”) tells me, “You need to start building now before you get married.” Hard to argue with that logic. I convinced a couple of airpark neighbors to join me, and in 2013 we formed the Pudding River Bearhawk LLC. Cookies are required for this site to operate correctly. Then we looked at the mission: sport flying (gentleman’s aerobatics and formation) plus speedy VFR cross-country. American Aerolights Eagle. The build time had to be short enough to fly prior to my hair commencing its migration, and metal was preferred. These planes cruise at speeds around 170kts and only burn about 5 gallons per hour. However, the real kicker was the test flight. I had grown fond of our bush plane’s short-field capability and appreciated a strong climb rate. But apparently the design has decent handling characteristics, and I look forward to that. I’d spent a lot of time at Oshkosh watching airplanes go by. A confirmed convertible freak and yet to be deflowered romanticist, I didn’t mind sitting outside, either. In fact, the RV line wasn’t on my radar at all. After watching it, there were two things written down on slips of paper and added to my bucket list. Magazine; Buyer's Guides; 2019 Homebuilt Aircraft Directory. A commercially licensed pilot, he has logged over 5000 hours in many different types of aircraft and is an A&P, EAA Tech Counselor and Flight Advisor, as well as a member of the Homebuilder’s Council. Now, after several big mods (constant-speed prop, IFR upgrade, dual P-MAGs), we have logged over 550 Hobbs hours in just over three years and are preparing for our third trip to Oshkosh. Like any dutiful husband would, I quickly agreed, before she had time to change her mind. I had looked longingly at a Carbon Cub, and I do truly love that plane, but in the end two things moved me away from it toward another GlaStar. I would not bother with the aftermarket tip tanks; it can do around 1000 nautical miles on just the mains. It lives in Georgia now. “Jabiru is not new to our company; we have used the Jab since 2006 in our Lightning sport aircraft. On that point the Jabiru has me spoiled. This gave us no downtime on orders. However, one fundamental logistical risk stood out: the chances of a successfully completed build to first flight. The seed of the idea was planted by the cover article on the Dyke Delta in the July 1972 issue of Air Progress. When Kend Rand designed his KR-1 in 1972, he also pioneered a state-of-the-art foam-and-fiberglass composite construction method which has now become standard in homebuilt, commercial, and military aircraft. I would not bother with an IFR GPS, given the amount of actual IFR I do. For $60,000 (used, in good condition) it’s reasonably fast, affordable, and if cargo space is a measure of utility, the Jabiru 230/250 is the one of the best, if not the best, two-seat aircraft for cross-country flying. Also learn how 10 of our regular contributors chose their own experimental aircraft. Flying cross-country in an open-cockpit plane that only goes 60 mph in calm air is an unexpected adventure into sheer physical torture. Let’s just say I am getting an education now in hopes of some future recreation. Starting with the original Mini-Max in 1984, we've been helping men and women achieve their dream of flight by offering affordable plans, partial kits and complete kits for our line of light aircraft. I had toyed with the idea of building a Starduster Too, but the impracticality of an open cockpit bi-wing airplane turned me in another direction. The latest engines represent 20+ years of production experience, and the airframe 25+ years. But the itch never manifested itself until 22 years into my Air Force career. Some looked OK, some looked…well, not so OK, most were just blah…and a few caught my eye as just looking right. Nigel Speedy chose to build an RV-8 because it met the criteria that were most important to him: tandem seating, cruise speed, range, aerobatics, cost, and solid support for the type. Think sleeping bags and camping tents, a bicycle (a racing bike, not a beach cruiser), snowboards, etc. People say that the nice thing about the RV-3B is the quality of the social experience, knowing that it’s a single-seater. The how and why of that acquisition was detailed in “To Launch a Light Sport-Redux” in the May 2015 issue of KITPLANES, so I won’t go over the details here, except to say that it was built by Bob Fritz, who started the “Home Shop Machinist” column. REVISED LISTING OF AMATEUR-BUILT AIRCRAFT KITS . A number of the parts need to be tweaked before they fit, and the plans, while sufficient, are not always well organized, complete, or ample. Alternator RealityIn the wiring diagrams in the article "All About Avionics: The Electric Airplane"... Dave Martin samples one of the three PiperSport LSA models introduced at the Sebring Expo, and finds it to his liking. With its fast climb and 150-mph cruise, cross-countries were reasonable expectations. Site maintenance is scheduled for Saturday, February 20, 2021. Javascript is required to operate this site, Your browser is not compatible with this website. Aluminum Cabin and Aluminum Rear Fuselage The Belite Kit is straightforward aluminum construction. Preferred browsers: Google Chrome, FireFox, or Microsoft Edge. “Sid, you flew over 2000 hours in the back seat of F-4 Phantoms. Knowing that I’d be retiring in a couple years, I consulted my wife, The Violinist, about ways that I could avoid becoming a living room vegetable when I no longer had to go to work every weekday. It’s open cockpit, so you can only fly in good weather. It is only now, on my fourth project, that I am customizing things from the beginning. To do that I had to both design and build the airplane. As one might expect, the space is, shall we say, density sensitive. Since our founding in 1985, Murphy Aircraft has seen steady growth in aircraft designs, sales, personnel, equipment, capabilities, and objectives. In any case it was a mess, looking like it was hurriedly built in a dark room by a guy welding without a mask and upholstered in an upstate Nevada sporting house, plus it had spent the last seven years standing motionless in a tin shed hangar. If a lot of cross-country time with a significant other had been part of the original plan, I would have considered an RV-14 instead for the larger panel space and more sociable side-by-side seating. In that, it was a complete success, in spite of its relatively short flying life. Category : Aircraft 145 h TT, Rotax 912 ULS, 100 hp, Warp Drive 3 blade prop, Grand Rapids Sport EFIS, Garmin 296, Icom A210 with intercom, Garmin GTX 327 Xponder mode C, AIM Lite engine monitor, ACK ELT, Electric seat heaters, 4 pt harness, hyd disc brakes, manual gear retract, There’s a world of satisfaction and pleasure in building a kit aircraft, without the grinding grunt work. Then in 1985 I got hooked up again with a grade-school buddy, Tom Glaeser. This includes anything from annuals to complete overhauls on Jabiru engines.”. This was it. Building an airplane is a major undertaking. This was my first kit aircraft project, and I while I enjoy building stuff, I really wanted to be flying, so an aircraft with a good probability of completion in a reasonable time period was important. Then Tom and I found an article about a “cheap-to-build, fun-to-fly” 7/8-scale WW-I Nieuport 11 replica fighter. I was disappointed, and I did catch Houston trying to hide a silent tear. Sharon Starks in her Airdrome Aeroplanes Morane-Saulnier “L” Parasol makes a pass with Dick Starks in his Graham Lee Nieuport 11 replica. RANS Designs, Inc I’ve got a very nice, reasonably fast, four-seat airplane and a capacious hangar in which to keep it. That’s much less than the cost of a set of main landing gear wheel bearings for a P-51 Mustang.). As for my J250-SP, the flight characteristics are extremely docile, especially in stalls. Over the next couple of decades, I partnered with Ken Krueger to build an airplane he designed, a small VW-powered single-seater we called the KK-1. Wham! But when the plane came back for a landing, she bounded out of the cockpit and declared, “Wow! For that matter, the Curtiss Junior has seemingly long wings, too. Top Makes (1) Lancair I finished that airplane and made the first flight on December 26, 1993. What a novel idea. As you peruse this year’s guide, we hope that you dog-ear the pages looking for your own dream project and plane, just as our authors have found theirs. (Tom and I take scrounging to a new Olympic level. N207KS was the 207th RV-6 kit sold out of more than 6000. The most powerful is the Lancair Propjet, a four-place kit with cabin pressurization and a turboprop engine, cruising at 24,000 feet (7,300 m) … The Sportsman flaps should be an improvement over the original GlaStar flaps, but require extra effort to make them work. And you have to trailer it to airshows…Why did you build it?”. How the Jabiru has all this space came about because the factory down-spec’d a four-seater, the J430, to meet the LSA category rules. Aerobatic, 6 G’s, retractable, reasonably nimble, and with an available V-6 “Mini Merlin”! As time went on, my fascination with the desirable characteristics of low-aspect-ratio configurations increased. Here is how I ended up building and flying a Van’s RV-8. The Carbon Cub is rather narrowly focused on the single mission of backcountry flying, which means that it does that very well but other things not so well. This year, we decided to show you our own choices. Find the way…. After two and a half years and 500 hours of flying, I still marvel at the fact that it was built at home. Now known as the ForeverHawk, it is expected to fly in 2019. With its 21ft length it's a bit bugger than … I tell folks that the RV-8 is not the best at any one thing, but it is very good at most things—at least the things that are important to me. “You know, I’ve never wanted to fly a prop plane ’til right now.”. A trip to Sun ‘n Fun and meeting with Mark Frederick of Team Rocket Aircraft helped reinforce our impressions and, as it turned out, he was from our home state of Texas, which made it easy to schedule a visit to check out the factory and go for a test flight. We have been modernizing as a company. Then Carl Battjes took me out in his Chard 6, and suddenly I understood what all the RV zealots were raving about. dated 8/27/2001 ** BushCaddy L164 (Quick Build) 10/31/01 ASM Quick Build Parts list . There is a long silence while he looks over the plane, then the other shoe drops. About this time also, I got a demo ride in an RV-12 and was surprised by its superb handling and remarkable visibility. Building it is both fun and challenging, and I haven’t gotten bored yet. I walk up to him and say, “Wanna try it on for size?”. Aviation is a personal journey, and building an aircraft is something that will change your life. For information on back issues of the Zenair Newsletter and DVDs click here: Now – for the first time – a video that takes the frustration and anxiety out of a complex building process! I could buy one of those and have the fun of shutting down the motor, too. I bought a GlaStar project that was some 20 years old from a nice guy who had just run out of good health and motivation to complete it. EAA.Org is currently undergoing some maintenance. Someday I might own another airplane. You’ve got to love a wife who asks for an airplane to be built. But as the “real” cost numbers started to jell, I simply had to yield to an overriding real-world priority: Houston’s older brother Chase was about to start his freshman year at Texas Tech. You read their work here every month—but what did they go through to get here? Sid Mayeux’s wife Kelli poses with Kelli Girl. RV-8 looks great and I guess it flies great too. Altitude more quickly meant more options sooner. One, I’d someday own and fly some kind of warbird. Undervalued, the Starduster was financially possible, unlike a two-seat Pitts. The airplane has been around long enough that its major design-improvement iterations are complete: the B model with wing tanks and a better spar being the major one. I think a total of seven or eight of those airplanes—combined—were ever finished. I knew which aircraft I wanted to build…the T-51. Aircraft Steel; Aircraft Aluminum; Hinge and Pin; Misc Metals; Firewall Forward. The UK’s top-ten most popular kit manufacturers based on new kit-starts registered with the LAA between June 2016 and July 2018 are as follows: 1. Most general aviation aircraft in the United States are registered to the FAA with respective tail numbers. But early on, I also put in several years working at the local airport, in part at Aberle Custom Aircraft, where besides having certified oil run down my arm, a minor parade of Pitts, Stardusters, and racing biplanes got my attention. Eventually, the demons were expunged, the engine and prop overhauled, so that while today the plane is still scruffy, it’s stronger and more reliable than ever. I had no idea what I was getting myself into. What do they have in common?