You’ve done your homework and some serious soul searching. Even after all the logical reasons you came up with for not building your own aircraft, you have decided your life will be incomplete without including becoming an aircraft manufacturer. Great! Now your homework really begins…

  There are so many factors to consider in determining the “right” project to match your needs it can make you dizzy. The good news is that there are as many options to match your needs as there are considerations! While you are the one that must ultimately decide what best fits your needs, we’ve tried to give you some points to think about while you narrow down your potential choices.

 We’ll start with a “laundry list” of considerations and then develop each idea in a little more detail. 

 Probably the best place to start in determining the best project for you is starting with the type of flying you’ll do after completing your project. Let’s get one thing straight right out of the starting gate. If you are an active pilot, don’t make the assumption that your flying habits or patterns will be drastically different after you own your own homebuilt aircraft than they are now. If you now rent and fly about 50-75 hours per year making mostly short hops around the local pea patch, don’t assume you’ll be flying 250 hours per year jet setting across the country in the Super Speedster you just finished building. Most this constraint comes from two areas every one of us has to reconcile: money and time. If you can only afford to fly 50 hours per year or that’s all the time you can free up from your busy schedule, it won’t be much different after your project is done. While every pilot would probably love to have a Lancair IV sitting in his or her hangar at their disposal, an airplane like that fits a unique need that may or may not be in sync with your needs.

 If most of your flying is longer distances, there are plenty of designs out there with excellent cruise speeds that would fit the bill perfectly. If, on the other hand, you are based in Idaho and do a lot of back-country flying, a more utilitarian tailwheel design might be just your ticket to the skies. Don’t forget to consider load carrying capabilities if you plan on doing a lot of cross country travel.

 The next consideration is how many seats are needed? Most designs are a tradeoff between performance and load carrying capability. Analyze how many times you really fill more than two seats on a fight. Do you have small children? Do you know how fast small children become big children and then young adults? Realistically by the time you finish your project, you kids could be big enough to throw off any decent weight & balance projection you can make now. There are many great designs available for building, but if you need more than two seats, the field narrows considerably.

 The kind of airport you’ll base your bird at and the airports you’ll fly to frequently will also dictate the design you ultimately choose, or, perhaps, it’s the other way around. If you enjoy visiting the short, little grass strips along your route of flight, a sleek little composite tri-gear design with tiny wheels isn’t your best choice. Some aircraft are really swift in the air, but use a lot of runway for take off and landing. Add a good 10 to 50 percent to published take off and landing distances if you plan on using grass strips. Conditions such as grass height and recent rains can significantly affect runway performance. These are all good points to consider when selecting a design.

 What kind of building skills do you possess? At first, this may seem to be a more important consideration than it really is. Many skills can be learned, and, with a little guidance from other builders and some practice, pretty much everyone can develop the skills necessary to build an airplane. However, there is one skill that you must possess to be a successful homebuilder. That skill is having and maintaining the right attitude. Building an aircraft is nothing more than thousands of small processes, when put together in the right sequence, results in an aircraft. A good builder is one that can keep the right attitude, even when a step goes off course. Homebuilding is a long-term project - one that takes perseverance to make it to the end. But along the way, you have to have the attitude to do it right, even if that means making a part several times. You have to be willing to hold yourself to a high standard of workmanship – constantly reminding yourself that you will one day be staking your life on the quality of workmanship you are putting into that part you’re building today. There is no room for “good enough” in homebuilding an experimental aircraft or kitplane.

It goes without saying (but I’m going to say it anyway, because you need to hear it) that you should carefully consider the project you plan to build and measure it against your piloting experience and skills. A relatively low time pilot should not be choosing a homebuilt aircraft or kitplane that requires significant piloting skills. It just doesn’t make sense to put a fellow with a couple hundred hours in a Cessna 152 in, say, something like a Lancair IV-P. You may well have the expert building skills to make a beautiful project, but don’t over estimate your experience. Besides, there are many excellent projects available that don’t require extraordinary piloting skills. While we’re on the subject, don’t be overly enamored with top-end speed listed by many kitplane manufacturers. It’s not necessarily that they won’t perform what the designer or manufacturer says, but they may very well meet those goals with unacceptably high wing loading and power to weight ratios, creating a machine that could well require skills you may not possess. Be sure you look at all the specs of the design and make some intelligent decisions. Remember, the designer or manufacturer doesn’t have to strap his fanny into the machine you build, you do. Keep these thoughts in mind when narrowing down your choices.

Another consideration when building is the amount of available time you have to devote to building. A relatively simple kitplane with a 500 to 800 hour build time could take a year or more. An involved composite construction project may hit the 3,500 hour mark with ease, requiring potentially 5-8 years of build time. This isn’t meant as a discouragement at all, because many homebuilders find they enjoy the building experience as much as the flying, sometimes more. In fact, look around the homebuilding community and you will find many prolific builders—some who have 3, 4, or even 5 or more projects under their belt. For some, it seems to be like eating popcorn—once they start, they can’t quit! The lesson here is, realize from the start how much time will be required to complete the project, and enjoy the process. Like the saying goes, success is in the journey, not the destination!

 The next consideration, although it is one of the more minor considerations, in my opinion, is what kind of materials do you prefer to work with? Some builders really prefer one type over another, say all metal or composites. It really doesn’t matter so much, because no matter what medium you choose, there will be ample support for you if you know where to look, especially at your local EAA chapter. The only caveat here is that some people have developed rather severe allergic reactions to the materials used in composite aircraft. If you are considering that method, it may be worth your while to get a few demo materials and give it a shot to ensure you can work with those raw materials.

 Considering whether you should build a kitplane or strictly from plans can be somewhat of a moot point if the airplane or helicopter of your dreams only comes as a kit. However, many times you have the option of doing either. Some builders prefer to have a helping hand in constructing individual parts, and for them a kit is the better way to go. Many designs have individual components that can be purchased, so that if a builder wants to do most of the construction themselves, they still have the option of purchasing a part that may be especially difficult or time consuming to construct themselves. Some kitplane manufacturers, however, don’t give a builder an option. The entire kit must be purchased to complete the project, although many manufacturers separate different components of the kit so they can be purchased as the builder progresses to ease the financial burden.  An experimental kitplane builder must consider many factors in picking the correct design, not the least of which is the reputation and financial stability of the manufacturer. Here is where a potential buyer had better perform his due diligence. The last thing any homebuilder wants is to get part way through an expensive project only to find the manufacturer has filed for bankruptcy and has closed the doors, taking builders’ deposits on undelivered kits with them. If going with a kit, make sure you’re dealing with a company that can deliver, and has delivered, to their customers on a consistent basis. For this reason, many builders prefer to build from plans only, knowing they’ll never be stuck with an unfinished project because of a kit manufacturer who couldn’t perform. There is any number of excellent designs that can be built just from the plans, and many have several different companies that support component parts that can be purchased if a builder desires.

Another thing to think about is builder support. It is best, especially for a first-time homebuilder, to pick a design that offer’s a lot of builder support, either from the factory or a large base of existing homebuilder’s. Many builder groups generally have an e-mail list on the internet where questions may be asked and opinions gathered about a particular building sequence or just homebuilding in general. In fact, it’s best to join such a list before committing to a design, just to learn the particulars about that aircraft. If the factory has problems with delivery or builder support, you’ll be sure to hear about it on the list, and potentially save yourself a lot of grief. 

Well, you’ve been given a lot of things to think about when considering the best homebuilt airplane or helicopter project to adopt as your own. The next thing to do is actually start listing your priorities and give them a rating factor as to how important that particular priority is. Once you’ve amassed the data on all your different choices, you then have a framework to narrow down the best possible project.     

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