By Ian Brown, EAA 657159, Editor, Bits and Pieces
Many people have built their own aircraft, so I thought I’d briefly share my own story. Like many others, I imagine, I was in my 50s when I learned to fly. You know, get the kids through college, get the mortgage paid off, and decide what to do with the spare income. My daughter had gone through the Air Cadet program, got her glider and private pilot licenses, and that motivated me to do the same. Renting aircraft was always iffy. The last renter was late back, but I wasn’t able to do the same. Getting my own aircraft seemed like the right thing to do.
It seemed at the time that the most cost-effective way to do this was to build my own aircraft. I have always been handy with tools and willing to learn new skills. Here are a few things that the whole process taught me:
- However long you think it will take, it will take longer.
- Time spent building is time away from flying.
- You have to enjoy the building process almost more than flying.
- Building your own aircraft doesn’t save you money, although it may be possible to defer some of the expenses as you buy the kit in stages. Remember there are additional costs like shipping that you can easily miss, then there’s the choice of engine!
- Your first build will always be the worst, unless you learned nothing in the process!
- You can always buy the exact same aircraft from someone who is passionate about building, and you get to inspect their work. It won’t necessarily cost you more. Remember that as you spend years building, the prices will go up.
Do I regret building my own airplane? Not really, but I think I would have had more of a “life” if I had bought someone else’s build and just spent more time at the airport flying with buddies. That point about being able to build better that second time is easy to miss, but there are probably many “repeat offenders” that could tell you that they got better and better.
In my case it took almost nine years working evenings and weekends as I was still working a very busy job that included lots of nights away from home. One rule of thumb I maintained was to do something on the project every day I was home. Sadly, my marriage didn’t survive the process of building an aircraft. Perhaps that’s one significant item for the bullet list above but I do think it deserves more emphasis than just one more item in a list of bullets. Even if your partner helps out when needed, you’re guaranteed to spend lots of time apart.
My Van’s RV-9A project spent its final six months at the airport before being signed off as ready to fly. That was in 2009. Since then I’ve had many scrapes that I won’t go in to here, perhaps in another article! The aircraft is overwintering in Florida, but at 74 I have to think about how much longer I want to continue flying. I’ve encountered excellent pilots in their mid-80s. Should I convince myself I’m one of them? How? Let me know your experience.