You’re building an airplane?

Yep, I’m building an airplane. It’ll be some time yet before I get started, so there’s plenty of time to work out the details. In fact, I have a couple practice kits to get warmed up on.

So why build a plane?

In my mind, there are 2 main reasons why you’d build one instead of buy, and those are

  1. You can’t find a certified aircraft that suits your needs
  2. You have a deep desire to build something

For me, I fall strongly in that latter category. I’ve loved planes since I was old enough to know what a plane was, and that love was fostered by my family, especially my dad, who got me into R/C planes as a kid. Since I’m working on getting my private ticket, seems only a natural progression. Not to mention my intense dislike for having other people work on my stuff. To own an engine that I wasn’t allowed to tweak on would drive me absolutely bonkers, and having an experimental aircraft opens that option up for me.

So what kind of plane am I going to build you might ask?

A Van’s RV-7A.

Van's RV-7A
Pilot: Lucas Delcaro - Photo: Josue de Andrade

You can find out more about this plane here on Van's website, but the short of it is this:

  • It’s fast
  • It’s aerobatic capable
  • It seats 2
  • You can do aerobatics in it
  • It looks good
  • Did I mention you can do loops and rolls and and spins and whatnot in it?

What’s not to like? Downside is the build time, of course, we’re estimating at least 2,000 hours of assembly from start to first flight. If I could put in 2 hours a day every single day, that’s almost 3 years of building! There are plenty of other kits out there that can be built much quicker (check out my brother’s Zenith CH 750 CruZer build at n622jc.com for example), but I think it will be worth it in the end.

So, am I crazy? I thought that much would have been obvious, but I like your attitude.