Larry Dighera wrote:



I guess the real question is why does the FAA feel it's necessary for
a homebuilder to have done 51% of the work? Is it to protect him from
himself, or to protect the public from him, or are there other
reasons? What of the prototypes built by Lockheed or Boeing; 51% of
them aren't constructed by a single individual.

Those aircraft aren't certified under Experimental-Homebuilt. The only
place the 51% rule applies. And for the record the rule isn't that the
plane be built 51% by Joe T. Nomebuilder it is that 51% of the TASKS
have to be done by Joe or others for Education and Recreation.



It seems that there is some fundamental assumption that I am
overlooking, because the current FAA 51% mandate seems arbitrary and
unfounded to me.

Congress passed the law requiring the FAA to create the regulations.
That's how it works in Washington.

The law was designed to allow home builders to do exactly that "For
recreation and education. When it was first passed the way it was
implemented in the real world was Joe T. Homebuilder bought some plans
or even designed it himself and then went to the hardware store and
bought what he needed an built the plane.

As time passed companies started putting to kits of all the parts (in
very unfinished form) needed to build their plans and selling that along
with the plans. All is good at this point because buying raw material
isn't really either education and it certainly isn't recreational.

More time passed and those kits of parts started becoming more and
complete and finished. The FAA saw the problem and modified the
regulation with the completely reasonable 51% rule.

BTW.