Falco - Kit plane or Plans-built?

Kyle Boatright wrote:
"Rich S." wrote in message
...

The headline on the Falco website reads, "Five Falcos Win Awards at Falco
50th Birthday". They're talking about Oshkosh - oops, I mean Airventure
2005.

The judges awarded Grand Champion Plans-built, Reserve Grand Champion
Plans-built, and two Bronze Lindys Plans-built to Falcos. The fifth award
went to a factory-built Falco for Outstanding Limited Production.

Here's what baffles me. Let me quote from the Falco website:

"The Falco's proven record and engineering puts it in a class by itself.
It was designed by Stelio Frati, one of the great aircraft designers of
all time. It was certified as a production aircraft. It was built as a
production aircraft and has a history of over 40 years of use by pilots in
Europe. Now, with many refinements, the Sequoia Falco is a modern,
state-of-the-art aircraft built from kits and flown by pilots all over the
world."

To highlight, ". . . the Sequoia Falco is a modern, state-of-the-art
aircraft *built from kits* . . ."

I saw those Falcos and they were absolutely stunning. For a KIT PLANE. I
doubt they would generally be so nice if the builder had to spend hundreds
of hours building those parts available from Falco as kits, including:

Wood Kits. . .
Wing - Spars, Ribs, Fuselage Frames
Tail Group - Spars, Ribs

Equipment. . .
Tail Group, Fuselage, Wing
Flap Control , Control System , Trim Tab Controls
Canopy, Engine Mount, Fuel Tanks, Inverted Header Tanks
Landing Gear, Nose Gear, Landing Gear Retraction
Cowling , Cowling Jig
Seats , Instrument Panel, Left Hand Throttle
Instrumentation, Electrical
Engine Controls, Baffling
Antenna Kit

The bottom line is that the basic kit for a Falco totals nearly $100,000
dollars. I can see that a percentage of that is for the materials
themselves, but a large part of it is for fabrication cost.

Again, it is not my intent to belittle the outstanding workmanship and
long hours to build one of these beauties. I simply question their
classification as a plans-built airplane.

Rich S.


It is a case by case basis. I've got an acquaintance (sp?) who is a true
perfectionist and is plans building a Falco. His airframe is more or less
complete. Heck, if he stained and sealed the thing, it could pass for the
finest furniture. Anyway, I believe he has purchased a couple of items such
as the cowl and the canopy, but as you alluded to, the subkits are
enormously expensive, and he's chosen to spend time instead of dollars.
Despite the fact that he's purchased a part or two, I'd list it as a plans
built. Shoot, the guy even welded up his own engine mount...

I'm sure there are individuals who are going the other route too, and even
folks who pay to have aircraft built for them, and will proudly claim they
plans built the thing in their own garage. I don't see a way to avoid that,
other than the hollow feeling someone would have to get if s/he won a Grand
Champion award and only participated at the level of writing checks and
flying the completed airplane to the show. There was an RV-6 a few years
ago that won a bunch of awards, but after talking to the owner and reading
an article on the airplane in Sport Aviation, it was obvious that the
airplane, beautiful as it was, was professionally built, and the owner was
trying to hide that fact. Jerk.

KB



Kyle, that is not a new thing, I think that you will find that a
majority of the show circuit winners with homebuilt aircraft are
professionally built or at least a majority of parts are professionally
built. There is a professional builder in Medford Oregon that cranks out
a couple winners every year. While I have no problem with people getting
help building their aircraft is seems a shame that they should be judged
in the same way as the guy like me that had to spend carefully while
building and had to drill and rivet every hole in the airframe.
I know that there are some builders that built show quality airplanes
and I envy thier talent but most don't.

Jerry

On 2005-08-12 17:26:11 -0400, "Kyle Boatright" said:

I don't see a way to avoid that, other than the hollow feeling someone
would have to get if s/he won a Grand Champion award and only
participated at the level of writing checks and flying the completed
airplane to the show.

Kyle, and all --

I don't think that sort of person, the one that would do such a thing,
is susceptible to conscience at that level. You all know the old Indian
tale about conscience being a three-cornered sharp rock? When you
commit a misdeed, it spins, and you get a burning feeling inside. The
more you do it, the more the corners of the rock wear down.

Some of these dudes who write the checks and fantasize that they built
the plane, well, they have a pretty round rock in there. But at least
they are participating at the limit of their skills. "A man's gotta
know his limitations," as Inspector Harry Callahan intones.

There was an RV-6 a few years ago that won a bunch of awards, but
after talking to the owner and reading an article on the airplane in
Sport Aviation, it was obvious that the airplane, beautiful as it was,
was professionally built, and the owner was trying to hide that fact.

Happens. The one builder I ever heard bad-mouth Lancair was using
minimum-wage A&P students to assemble IVPs on a crude assembly line.
When I visited his hangar, he had ten IVPs in one stage of completion
or another, was pushing a V-8 conversion (made by a blood relative, a
detail he didn't get around to mentioning to me), and he regaled me
with all the ways to pull the wool over the FAA's somnolent eyes. The
whole place was a mess; I wouldn't have bought a bicycle from this guy.

Money quote: "So, you lie on the form. Everybody does it." Maybe
everybody in his world.

Talking to Lancair people this year, I learned that none of those
airplanes ever flew without another shop working on them to correct
this guy's problems. He was a hired-gun that didn't even deliver
hired-gun quality.

The loosely-associated V-8 project had, IIRC, two bankruptcies and
AFAIK never produced a reliable engine.

And one of those airplanes appeared in a major magazine a couple of
years later in which the proud owner-"builder" regaled the writer with
tales of how he built the airplane.

Most, althought not all, Lancair IVs and other very high-po airplanes
are built by someone with extremely sharp building chops. In most
cases, they didn't get those chops doing things that give them money to
fund such a kit for personal use. The physicians and attorneys that fly
these things generally had a lot of help. Most of them will admit as
much.

Who signs the FAA paperwork is a function of your own integrity, with
the heavy governmental thumb of restrictive licensing pushing people to
make false declarations on those forms.

A number of the Pitts Model 12s out there were built by Jim Kimball
Enterprises, rather than the ultimate owner who commissioned those
planes. Because JKE has a reputation to uphold, unlike the gentleman I
mentioned above, when they do that the plane is registered
Experimental-Exhibition, which is within the letter and spirit of the
law. (By the way, it's no accident that Kevin K takes skinless Model 12
parts to shows. If my furniture was that high quality I'd sell it on
eBay and buy more planes).

FWIW, I think most of the hired guns do a very, very good job of
building a safe plane. If I were interested in a Lancair, though, I
would do it with their Builders' Assist program, which gives you the
benefits of adult supervision, factory tooling, and the dual bennie of
being able to sign that FAA declaration in all honesty while having
lots of good, professional help.

On the original subject -- I have never seen anyone submit a Falco for
judging as kit-built; I always assumed that EAA just threw them all in
the plans-built bin rather than try to sort the sheep from the goats
(if Ed Wischmeyer is still in the group, he might know. ISTR he is
always a volunteer in the homebuilt milieu, and I have a vague
recollection Ed might have been a judge). This spares the judges the
importunites and hair-splitting that comes from dealing with planes
that are available both ways, especially when many plans builders take
advantage of subkits, etc.

Plans, or kit, I've never seen a Falco that was anything less than,
say, Sophia Loren in her prime, in the easy-on-the-eyes department. But
so's Rich's Emeraude (and I only saw it in the repair corral after a
gopher hole attacked it several Oshes ago).

Judging kit planes as plans-built may be unavoidable, but it isn't
exactly fair. But then life, as JFK famously said, is unfair.

The judges are naturally also drawn to the big-buck, big, fast,
powerful plane, when the resto job on a Mooney Mite or Aeronca C-3, or
the handwork on a Pietenpol, goes unrecognised. This also favours the
sleek, complex Falco. Not fair, but there it is.

cheers

-=K=-

Rule #1: Don't hit anything big.

On Sat, 13 Aug 2005 12:08:41 -0400, Kevin O'Brien
kevin@org-header-is-my-domain-name wrote:

The judges are naturally also drawn to the big-buck, big, fast,
powerful plane, when the resto job on a Mooney Mite or Aeronca C-3, or
the handwork on a Pietenpol, goes unrecognised. This also favours the
sleek, complex Falco. Not fair, but there it is.

It's not just natural inclination, it's also the way the rules are written. In
addition to how well the builder did, the designs themselves are rated for
complexity. I read an article about this an eon or two ago...IIRC, the designs
are rated one through five, with one being the "easiest". If two planes get
equal judging scores, the more-complex plane gets the trophies.

Ron Wanttaja

On 2005-08-13 12:20:42 -0400, Ron Wanttaja said:

On Sat, 13 Aug 2005 12:08:41 -0400, Kevin O'Brien
kevin@org-header-is-my-domain-name wrote:

The judges are naturally also drawn to the big-buck, big, fast,
powerful plane, when the resto job on a Mooney Mite or Aeronca C-3, or
the handwork on a Pietenpol, goes unrecognised. This also favours the
sleek, complex Falco. Not fair, but there it is.

It's not just natural inclination, it's also the way the rules are written. In
addition to how well the builder did, the designs themselves are rated for
complexity.snip one through five, with one being the "easiest".

I'll be dipped. I didn't know that.

I sure wouldn't want the responsibility of trying to come up with a
fair judging system. This is all done by volunteers, and I bet there
are times they regret they ever volunteered.
--
cheers

-=K=-

Rule #1: Don't hit anything big.

Kevin

Are you talking about my brother ' Harry ' ?

John
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On Sat, 13 Aug 2005 12:08:41 -0400, Kevin O'Brien
kevin@org-header-is-my-domain-name wrote:

----clip----

Some of these dudes who write the checks and fantasize that they built
the plane, well, they have a pretty round rock in there. But at least
they are participating at the limit of their skills. "A man's gotta
know his limitations," as Inspector Harry Callahan intones.


----clip----

"Rich S." wrote

The bottom line is that the basic kit for a Falco totals nearly $100,000
dollars. I can see that a percentage of that is for the materials
themselves, but a large part of it is for fabrication cost.

Again, it is not my intent to belittle the outstanding workmanship and
long
hours to build one of these beauties. I simply question their
classification
as a plans-built airplane.

At least one Falco at OSH this year was a plans built. I do not know if it
was one of the ones that won a prize, but I talked to the builder, and he
built everything of the airframe from the plans. As far as the hardware, I
do not know how much of that he bought.

In case you remember it, it was a white one, with the nose pointed towards
show center. I think it might have been Canadian.
--
Jim in NC

"Morgans" wrote in message
...

At least one Falco at OSH this year was a plans built. I do not know if
it
was one of the ones that won a prize, but I talked to the builder, and he
built everything of the airframe from the plans. As far as the hardware,
I
do not know how much of that he bought.

In case you remember it, it was a white one, with the nose pointed towards
show center. I think it might have been Canadian.

There were so many it's hard to sort them out without a picture. I guess
that's because it was the 50th anniversary of the design. The Emeraude is 53
this year.

Rich S.

On 2005-08-16 19:00:20 -0400, Richard Riley said:

I assume mountains in Greece also count as big?

Ouch. Mountains by definition are big, whether they be in Greece or
Venezuela. Indeed, I'm rather selective about where I choose to return
to terra firma while wearing an aircraft. Some areas are rather
drearily unsuitable.

Some poor ******* has hit the mountains on every continent. Air New
Zealand stuffed a DC-10 on a rather screwy VFR flight in Antarctica
some years back -- what a mess that was.

Oceans are big, too, and lakes (especially the Great Lakes, I note that
LaSalle or Pontiac or whoever named them didn't call them The Ickle
Ponds) and there's hardly a one that doesn't have an airplane at the
bottom somewhere.

Y'all be careful out there.

cheers

-=K=-

Rule #1: Don't hit anything big.