On Aug 27, 11:52 pm, James Sleeman wrote:
On Aug 28, 12:33 pm, Phil wrote:

an ultralight for around $20,000. But you can't really go cross
country in one of those, and you would probably have a hard time
convincing most wives to even consider going up in one at all.

Depends what you think of an Ultralight as, if you're thinking
traditional US Legal Ultralight, then sure I'll agree that it is
realistically local flying. But if you consider the rest of the
world's comparable ultralight definitions, which is basically what the
US has now with LSA, then it's a different matter.

Take the XAir-H for example,http://www.xairusa.com/XAir%20H.html,
$20,000 should get you flying one behind a Rotax 582, you'll have to
assemble yourself but I have it from somebody who has built one
recently, that it's a doddle even for an office worker like him,
unpack box, follow the step by step instructions basically. Take a
couple weeks off work and go at it, what better vacation ;-)

For something a little more proven (and much better looking IMHO) a
RANS S6 Coyote (http://www.rans.com/3S6ES.htm) or Kitfox (http://www.kitfoxaircraft.com/) won't hit that much higher, it might take a
bit more work and skill to build though.

I think that for $20,000 you really can't expect anything other than a
kit aircraft in a box. If you want to spend $30,000, buy a kit
aircraft and pay somebody to build it (or just buy a nice used one
which already has the teething trouble worked right out of it).

I don't doubt that you could do that, but I think that most people
wouldn't be interested in arranging to have an airplane built. A used
kitplane would be more of a possibility, but I would bet that there
are a lot people who wouldn't want to buy an amateur-built airplane.
I am talking about a manufacturer producing a ready-to-fly airplane
for way less than the current crop of LSAs. I am guessing that labor
costs are the biggest expense in building an airplane. If you can
make an airplane simple enough to construct, it should cost a lot less.