Would you pay money to see this plane?

Well John,

Guess I'll have to call the fire department for that last one...

At the risk of fueling more of your flames:

Yeah. I'm probably the only guy on this group with a homebuilt that
actually makes money at airshows. Why does that make you so hostile?
I've been on this group since 2000 and I've never knowingly flamed
anyone. I've got a fair amount of respect for most of the posters here,
and a great amount of respect for a few select members that know a hell
of a lot more about aviation than I do. I had hoped to draw upon their
knowledge.

I didn't post this thread as some sort of idiot test or troll bait. I
simply wanted to know if anyone thought the concept was interesting
enough to persue. I have been, and remain very serious about this
subject. General consensus of the three opinions I received (including
yours): resounding NO. It needs to fly. Fine. Point taken. RAH wants to
see it fly, and a loud-ass engine isn't enough to make up for the fact
that it doesn't.

From a marketing perspective, that either means that the concept as
presented will be unsuccessful and needs to be modified, OR, the given
sample of opinions is either not large enough or does not represent the
consensus of the target market. Its fairly difficult to draw
conclusions based on three responses. Hence, my comment about surveying
my biker friends. It would probably be a good idea to have a "vote for
our next plane" box at a few airshows as well.

If I wanted to build and show a Bleroit, I'd build and show a Bleroit.
But its been done, with an original airframe and engine. No real need
for a replica unless you just want to. Ditto the Demoiselle. Far more
rare, but still, its been done. Both of those machines have also been
well documented. And if I just wanted to make cash on the airshow
circut, a converted T-58 bolted to a barstool racer would be hard to
beat. There's already a guy with a jet-powered outhouse that does quite
well.

I'm interested in building and showing machines that aren't famous but
should be. Ones that were built by men and women that used their brains
and worked their butts off. To me, how the machine performed is a lot
less important than telling the story, and illustrating it with wood
and cloth. Particularly, a story that inspires kids to try to do
something extraordinary.

When I exhibited at Hartsfield-Jackson airport, there was a large group
of inner-city kids that attended as part of a field trip. The first
question was: Did you build this? The second was: are you like an
engineer or something? The answer is, yes I did and no, I'm not an
engineer. I'm not anything special. I'm not even rich. I'm just a guy.
I built this plane in a borrowed garage, with basic tools, and paid for
it $20 at a time. It was hard, and many times I wanted to quit. It made
me cry, and it made me sick, and when I failed to finish it for the
expedition to Kitty Hawk in 2002, I failed in front of my family and my
girlfriend. They were all very mad at me for promising them a trip to
see a flying machine, but delivering nothing more than a pile of 1/2
finished parts in a trashed garage. But I sucked it up, and finished
the plane, and now its here for you to see. And that's what it was like
for the Wright Brothers too. They studied hard in school and used the
math and science that they learned in class to invent a machine. And it
didn't work. And they failed, and were embarassed and discouraged. But
they kept going, and figured it out. And any one of you can do
something like that too.

Unfortunately, I'm not wealthy enough (yet) to build powered aircraft
out of my own pocket. And yes, right now my choice of projects will be
strongly influenced by the plane's ability to pay for itself. If it
can't, then it won't be built for another few years. I'll continue on
with the Wright exhibit, making improvements where I can, and hopefully
inspiring a few kids along the way.

There's no need to respond to this thread anymore. I'm done.


Harry