Got a few hours in the log book. It’s hard to coordinate time off and good weather to learn.
Garage has become an assembly area for an RV-14. Tail kit is coming together.

Have I lost my mind?
My son is tracking to fly for a career. We went to a fly-in this weekend in Auburn so he could talk with aviators, look at some planes, and get some info from AU Aviation.
We had been talking about home builts and know several who are doing it or have built. Talked to the RV-7 owners and we wound up going for a flight. I had always wanted to fly but never did, now I want to.


My son was in the yellow RV and came up to fly formation with us for a few minutes before breaking off to let us both have a little stick time.
Untitled by Glen Williams, on Flickr

Untitled by Glen Williams, on Flickr

I see the wheels (or is it props?) turning in his head.
Untitled by Glen Williams, on Flickr

This message has been edited. Last edited by: fgwilliams1,

Building an airplane is a non-trivial project.

My wife and I, at the start of our time together, started building a plane in our aircraft fac.... err, garage. She was a pilot, as was I. It was great fun. Get home from work, quick dinner, out in the garage, cutting big pieces into small pieces, gluing small pieces into big pieces, realize we miscalculated and redo most of them, etc. All weekend in the garage.

After years of work, I became allergic to epoxy resins and we had to give it up. Too bad, or maybe not.

When you build and fly your own, you are solely responsible for every aspect of that airplane. If it is unairworthy in any respect, it is your fault. It is up to you. You are the builder, the test pilot, the inspector who signs off the inspections and annual inspection.

We were building a Cozy IV, a Rutan off shoot, a 4 place Longeze basically.

When I reported the trouble I was having with epoxy allergies, the guys in the club told me to just buy a Longeze. I replied that I wanted a 4 seater. “Why?” they asked. “Nobody wants to ride around in an airplane built by a lawyer!”

Just remember, nothing beats knowing what you are doing.

Flying is a great way to turn money into noise. The RVs are a great airplanes. There’s a lot of capability and they’re cheap. Aviation economics are different than normal economics- “cheap” for aviation doesn’t mean inexpensive for normal people.

I’d love to build a plane some day (my choice would be an Aircam), but don’t be tempted as a cheap way to the party. Build if you want to build, buy if you want to fly.

quote:

Originally posted by JALLEN:
We were building a Cozy IV, a Rutan off shoot, a 4 place Longeze basically.

That's my future project.

After I finish the Sorrell Guppy and the RV-6.

The bucket list project is a Fokker DR1 replica.

May I offer for your consideration. Not flashy. Not fast. But absolutly a great, affordable airplane to learn in.

https://www.barnstormers.com/cat.php?mode=search

I have no interest whatsoever in this particular, other than having flown the type as one of the early-in-my-career aircraft. I can attest to it's great handling characteristics, and economy of use.

^^^Sorry, I couldn't get the link to copy & paste. Go to the above website, type in 'Beechcraft' then scroll down to 'Skipper'. Paruse and see if you find something you like. Good luck.

learning to fly and building an airplane are totally separate and distinct things. The easy one is flying so start there, if you are happy and want more you can build one.

Regardless of what the kit or plans sellers tell you about build times, you're going to spend 7-10 years (or more) building.

It won't get you any closer to pilot certification.

Building is a thing unto itself. It's enjoyable, slow, tedious, frustrating, educational, rewarding, but requires an exceptional dedication with few rewards along the way.

The hardest part of learning to fly is paying for it.

You'll pay a lot more trying to do it at a university, incidentally.

quote:

Originally posted by hrcjon:
learning to fly and building an airplane are totally separate and distinct things. The easy one is flying so start there, if you are happy and want more you can build one.

Decades ago, there was a fellow, in AZ I think, who was building a Longeze. Some of the folks in EZ Squadron knew him. He was a perfectionist, insisted on every part being perfect, holding very tight tolerances. He built his airplane, incredibly well done, but was not a pilot. I believe he had someone fly it to Oshkosh where it was awarded Grand Champion, I think.

I recall someone remarking that this fellow was a perfectionist, and flying is not perfect. He couldn’t stand that, but could enjoy building. I never understood that. Why build an airplane if not to fly it?

quote:

Originally posted by sns3guppy:
Regardless of what the kit or plans sellers tell you about build times, you're going to spend 7-10 years (or more) building.

And as we used to say, you will be 90% done with 50% to go.

quote:

Originally posted by JALLEN:


And as we used to say, you will be 90% done with 50% to go.

Yeah, not counting the do-overs that come with the learning curve, inevitable stretches of inactivity, and life that seems to get in the way. The devil's in the details, and aircraft are nothing but details.

If you want to learn to fly, learn to fly. Buy something already ready to fly and common such as a Cessna 182 or similar. Flying takes a lot of money both to learn and do.

Building an airplane is a whole different ball game and takes years and a whole lot of dedication. You're not going to learn to fly and build an airplane at the same time. I would forgo building an aircraft unless you're retired and have nothing but time on your hands.

been there and done that - long time member of EAA, was a chapter VP for about 8 years back in Nova Scotia

while a student at Northrop in LA, I started building a Vari Viggen - I've known Mike Melville for almost 40 years and got to fly his plane out of Mojave.

Had all of the metal pieces fabricated - was working on them at night in the dorm room as I could use the school shops during the days to get pieces cut, rough shaped, etc - did the rest at night after studying

when I moved back to Canada, several boxes got lost - one with all my power tools and hand tools, along with all of the finished metal parts

I had hundreds of hours into it

This message has been edited. Last edited by: nhtagmember,

‘Learning to fly, then do it as a career’? I would forget about the building for now, other than assisting.

The AOPA site has a free ‘Flight Training’ magazine for prospective students, check it out.

You likely have a Civil Air Patrol unit nearby. You won’t learn to fly at a C.A.P. Unit, but it is aviation related, and minimal cost. Yes, units vary in usefulness, research.

Get down to Lakeland, FL next April for Sun & Fun, maybe Oshkosh, WI some July.

Repeat offender here: 2 LongEZ's, one LimoEZ, one Glassair III and one Lancair 320. I may have one more plane left in me, but maybe not. If I do build again it will be a metal RV, specifically an RV-14. Two of the planes were Oshkosh winners, so they weren't quick or cheap. Best advice: if you really want an experimental homebuilt, buy a nice one someone has already finished as you'll likely pay for materials and nothing for the builder's labor.

aileron

This may sound crazy but forget about buying an airplane. Find a flight school (or a solo instructor), find an instructor your son communicates well with, then pay the money to rent whatever plane or planes he is going to learn in.

IFF your son flies a lot, often (which is best anyway from a learning standpoint), you buy the right airplane, get a good deal on it, sell it before the market turns, and don’t run into any unexpected maintenance gotchas, you might save some money over renting. Even so, you will tie up a lot of capital, and lots of things can go wrong that could make owning a whole lot more expensive than renting. Additional points to consider are: 1) If he changes his mind about the whole flying thing, the renter isn’t stuck with an airplane to get rid of. 2) Once he has his license he will be a lot more knowledgeable and may be better equipped to choose well. As a side note, having owned a few airplanes, my rule of thumb is that upon purchasing a new to you airplane that your mechanic has done an annual inspection level pre-purchase inspection for you on, count on spending a minimum of $5,000.00 (heck, probably 10k, as the last purchase was back in the 1990s) to do minor fixes, upgrades, or whatever that you decide on as you fly the airplane a bit.

Once he is sure he’s found the right school and instructor you can often save some money by buying “block time,” prepaying for some number of hours (10 hour blocks is a common size). I would recommend against prepaying for much more than 10 hours at a time.

Old guys with a lot of experience who are teaching because they love it can be great. Newer instructors who have less experience but have all the latest stuff fresh in their minds and a passion for teaching can be great too. One challenge with the younger instructors is that many of them are building time trying to get on with the airlines. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but if that is what they are doing there is always the possibility that they’ll get that job offer and move on before your son finishes. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing but it be one more thing to deal with.

If your son can learn fly as his full time job (take a lesson daily five or six days a week, spend a lot of time hanging out at the airport learning everything he can), his learning process will be *much* faster and more efficient. I did my private pilot airplane single engine land that way and it was really quick. Then school started up and I worked on my glider add-on flying one day each weekend while carrying a relatively heavy load at school. I spent close to half of each lesson re-learning what I had forgotten from the last lesson. If your son can do this, it is worth talking to the instructor(s) to make sure they can fly that frequently.

This one isn’t as fun, but it works. Do the groundschool and pass the written test first. To the best of my knowledge, all military and airline pilot programs do groundschool first. The thing is that an airplane is an expensive and relatively crappy classroom. The problem is that you have to keep flying the airplane - you can’t just stop everything and say, “Wait, I didn’t get that. Explain it differently.” It is also noisy and always moving. Many (most?) flight schools do it the other way because flying is more fun than doing “homework” and students who are having fun are more likely to keep coming back and spending money. It is much cheaper to be thinking “I understand what the instructor is saying already learned that from ground school.” Than to be thinking, “I understand what John and Martha King are saying on this dvd (or more like online course these days) because my instructor already taught that to me in that noisy, bumpy, very expensive classroom.” Spend your time in the airplane mostly learning to manipulate the controls, while getting the benefit of your instructor’s wisdom re judgement and decision making. I did every rating prior to my ATP MEL the flight school way. Care to guess which one was the most efficient?

Good luck to your son!

-Nick

I agree - do the ground school and get it out of the way

get the exam out of the way

learn to use the old E6B rather than the fancy new computers

know how to sue the plotter, dividers, be able to read the maps - for me learning and remembering the intricate symbology was and is the most difficult

then get into an airplane

quote:

Originally posted by aileron:
Repeat offender here: 2 LongEZ's, one LimoEZ, one Glassair III and one Lancair 320. I may have one more plane left in me, but maybe not. If I do build again it will be a metal RV, specifically an RV-14. Two of the planes were Oshkosh winners, so they weren't quick or cheap. Best advice: if you really want an experimental homebuilt, buy a nice one someone has already finished as you'll likely pay for materials and nothing for the builder's labor.

aileron

aileron is right, and not just with homebuilts. Buy a nice airplane that is as close as you can get to what you want. If you buy a fixer-upper, by the time you fix it up, you’ll have as much money in it as you would have if you bought one all fixed up, if not more. Oh, and all those months you spent working on your fixer-upper, you could have been flying the ready to go bird. Don’t ask me how I know this one. It was fun learning how things worked, but no dimes were saved.