I have wanted to become a pilot since I graduated high school.  However, I always let things like cost and my time get in the way of flying.  I don't come from a family of pilots.  In fact, I only know one individual in my family who flies at all.  An uncle, a warrant officer, flies the Longbow helicopter for the U.S. Army.  The picture below was of his early days when he was still flying Cobra's.

When I took my current job in Nebraska, I found myself having some spare time in my life for the first time in over 10 years.  One day I was watching Discovery Wings and a EAA series "From the Ground Up" was on.  In this show, they build a Van's RV-8 Quick Build.  I watched it all day.  That is all it took to re-flare the flying itch.  I thought that maybe the feeling would pass after a period of time.  Well, 7 months later, and I still wanted to fly.  I keep telling myself that I spent that time looking into the feasibility of buying, building, and renting airplanes.

Up to this point, I had never been in a small plane.  I decided that I wanted to go to Airventure 2003 for two days to get the taste of aviation.  First, I scheduled a discovery flight with the airport FBO in Falls City, Nebraska.  Phil, took me up in a Cessna 150 for about a 1/2 and showed me some basics.  He will tell you I was nervous or uptight about the flight, I will tell you that I was excited.  It was better than the rides at any amusement park!!!  And, this was in a Cessna 150...  I can't imagine what it would be like in something considered fast.

I started looking at buying a plane.  I quickly became discouraged at this venture.  Planes are expensive (whether you build or buy).  I found that about the only thing I could afford were planes as old as I was.  To get them to a condition I typically like in my vehicles, these planes were going to become projects adding to the total cost of the plane.  When I would be done, none of them would go as fast as the planes I could build.  Not to mention, they would still be 30+ years old when restored.  For about the same money, I could build a new plane, configure it as I wanted and as long as I built it, I could apply for the repairman certificate allowing me to do my own maintenance.  My choice, therefore, turned out to build instead of buy...

Now the choices....  There are a plethora of choices in the home built airplane arena.

Some general aircraft requirements I decided my plane should have:

• Capability of cross-country trips.  3+ miles per minute with at least a 600 mile range on a tank of gas.
• STOL performance with slow take off and landing speeds.
• Casual aerobatic capabilities.  Gotta have something to do when not going cross-country.
• Capable of carrying two real sized adults, luggage for cross-country trips, and a full tank of gas.

I looked at the following kit manufacturers before deciding on Van's

• Sonex-  The looks didn't do anything for me, however this planes positives were reasonable price and ease of construction.  They are a metal airplane much like Van's and have pre-punched kits.  http://www.sonex-ltd.com/

• Glasair/Glastar-  I really like the performance features of this company's aircraft.  However, their kit prices, in my opinion, were high.  Additionally, I had read somewhere (can't remember where) that they were going through some bankruptcy restructuring which made me a little nervous.  I had never worked with fiberglass or carbon fiber so that left me with another unknown.  New Glasair just came out with the Sportsman Glastar just before I turned my order in for the RV-7.  I REALLY like that plane.  A little slow, but what a plane.  With its available landing gear configurations, it would make a good back country plane.  I didn't go with that plane once again, because of the kit price.  http://www.newglasair.com/

• Lancair-  This company's planes are impressive.  I would love to have a Lancair 4P.  However, at $100,000 for the airframe kit alone makes this plane out of the question.  345 MPH hauling 4 people half way across the country on a single tank of gas would be great.  Since my mission is mainly to haul my wife and I around the country, I figured the Legacy would be a good match.  A 310 HP engine and cruising speeds at 275 MPH.  I could live with that.  I ordered their preview video and really liked what they had to say.  The airframe is carbon fiber with NOMEX honeycomb materials.  The airframe will not burn or catch fire.  They are claiming their fast build kit can be completed in 500 hours.  I found the Legacy to be out of my price range, complicated with retractable gear, and again, I haven't ever worked with composites.  I was just not sure if this time around I wanted to fork over that much money for the airframe alone.  http:/www.lancair-kits.com

However, just before I submitted my order for the RV-7, Lancair almost lured me in and came out with a fixed gear version of the Legacy.  This Legacy addressed a couple of my concerns, 1- now comes with fixed gear, 2- it will accept a 200 hp Lycoming.

I was hoping to get a close look at it during Airventure, but they had it behind ropes and it was inaccessible.  It appeared Lancair was fixing something with the engine/FWF.  I decided not to go with this kit because it still was $30K just for the airframe.  I have more time than money, so I can go with a slow-build Van's kit.

• Velocity-  This company has a beautiful canard pusher design.  I really like the looks of the canard pushers.  It is definitely different.  The factory demos we saw at Airventure were gorgeous.  This plane didn't make it to far up on my list though.  My understanding of this plane is it can be expensive to insure, it is not a good plane for grass landing strips, and the kit prices were out of my price range and in the ballpark with Glasair's kit prices.  However, for that money, the Velocity gives you 4 seats instead of 2.  I couldn't find alot of builders out there for this company either.  The Velocity XL has a lot of cabin room.  It would be a seriously comfortable cross country plane.  http://www.velocityaircraft.com

• Van's-  What can I say about Van's.  Awesome Kit / Plane !!!
  • It is an all metal airplane, great looks, excellent performance, pre-punched kits, and the most reasonably priced kit on the market. 
  • Aerobatic capable.
  • Simple design, wide variety of engine choices.
  • One of the things that REALLY convinced me to build a Van's kit was the sheer number of kits currently under construction.  Without looking too hard, I was able to find numerous detailed web sites of fellow builders.  When I ordered their preview kit, Van's sent me a list of all the builders within a 75 mile radius of my location.  It had probably nearly a 50 names (and I live in the middle of nowhere).  Relying on help from others was important since I had never taken on a project this big before.  I had a hard time finding builders for both Lancair and Glasair (either on the net or locally).  It seems, at least, that Van's has a higher percentage of kits that actually get finished.  That has to have something to do with their ease of assembly.
  • The all metal plane doesn't require me to have elaborate shop environmental controls.
  • I have heard alot of people talk about how they hate working with glass.

I pretty much had decided on the RV-7/7A by the time we went to Airventure.  Van's, however, was formally introducing the RV-10 and had a mock-up everyone could sit in.  Tami sat in the mock-up and I had to spend the rest of the vacation talking her back into the RV-7.  She really liked the idea of a four seat plane and compared to others we sat in, the RV-10 had a lot of room.  She was impressed, however, the decision really came down to the $$$$.