Buying a used home-built?

Dan,

Pure Urban legend... do the research before you spout such poppycock!

I don't have time to research it right now, but there was a guy on
either r.a.piloting or r.a.homebuilt...

Very convincing.


I had to smile - thought the same thing. My recollection is that AOPA
wrote about the higher accident rate in Pilot magazine recently.

--
Thomas Borchert (EDDH)

IMHO, the reason why there are cheap Glasairs out there is that they
are hard as hell to fly, absolutely frightening to land, visibility out
of the cockpit is abysmal, the engines do not get enough cooling air
thru them and they're always eating cylinders, and the landing gear is
constant need of maintenance. I know two fellows who own them and are
both wishing they didn't. I've ridden in both of them.... once each,
and I'll never get in another one except perhaps only for taxiing.

Jay Honeck wrote:
It seems that there are some remarkable deals out there for 200 mph
used
Glasairs, but I would hesitate to buy one simply because I wouldn't
trust
the workmanship.

What's the consensus on this issue? Is this a valid fear, or -- as
some
have told me -- does the workmanship on the average home-built meet
or
exceed that of the average Spam Can?
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

In article ,
Thomas Borchert wrote:

Jay,

as far as I know, the accident rate with experimentals is WAY higher
than with "spam cans". What's the reason for that? Is it building
quality?


No -- it is usually lack of current experience in the type and
performance level of the plane involved.

A lot of homebuilders spend all their free time (and money) building and
either let their flying skills deteriorate or do not have the skills in
the first place.

The EAA Flight Advisor program is designed to address this skill gap.

wrote:
I subscribed to the Velocity newsletters for a while, and concluded
that on average they are OK. The problem is that any single aircraft
may be at either end of a long scale - i.e. a large standard deviation.
Builders are often tempted to take shortcuts on "non-essential" items
such as wiring, fluid lines, and particularly engines. Somebody's been
trying to sell a Velocity for several years that carries a GM
automobile engine.

I'd be interested in that if the price is right. Know how to contact them?

Thanks.

IMHO, the reason why there are cheap Glasairs out there is that they
are hard as hell to fly, absolutely frightening to land, visibility out
of the cockpit is abysmal, the engines do not get enough cooling air
thru them and they're always eating cylinders, and the landing gear is
Sorry,
I have to stongly dissagree, I flew only C-172/C-182 for 25 years. with 8 hours
of training in type before flying mine I found transitioning to be easy. Unless
you flew underpowered Glasairs or Taildraggers I dont understand how you came
to any of these conclusions. I have very good temps on mine. The glasair
landing gear (retract) is absolutely outstanding. I don't know what planet your
on but its not this one.

constant need of maintenance. I know two fellows who own them and are
both wishing they didn't. I've ridden in both of them.... once each,
and I'll never get in another one except perhaps only for taxiing.

Jay Honeck wrote:
It seems that there are some remarkable deals out there for 200 mph
used
Glasairs, but I would hesitate to buy one simply because I wouldn't
trust
the workmanship.

Jay, a little reasearch and some help from knowledgable Glasair owners to help
you on the assesment, I would not hesitate to buy one with proper expert help
on the inspection before purchasing.


What's the consensus on this issue? Is this a valid fear, or -- as
some
have told me -- does the workmanship on the average home-built meet
or
exceed that of the average Spam Can?
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

"Dan Luke" wrote in
:


"BeaglePig" wrote:

Pure Urban legend... do the research before you spout such poppycock!

I don't have time to research it right now, but there was a guy on
either r.a.piloting or r.a.homebuilt...

Very convincing.

Thanks, just as convincing as the original post.....

Ok, now that I had a moment to research, the post was by Ron Wanttaja
who also was/is the author of an article in Kitplanes magazine in the
October issue. Maybe someone who subscribes to Kitplanes can grace us
with a summery of the article.

BeaglePig

"Jon A." wrote in message
...
Without a doubt, probably the best homebuilt line out there. When you
get into the guts of these things and see missing, mal aligned or
rivets improperly bucked, alignments made necessary by poor
installation of components on the back end and compensated for by
removing goods on the close end, hardware store parts and pieces and
generally going totally against the recommendation of Ol' Van, you
gotta start thinking about what the deal is.



These don't sound like litems that would be missed by someone doing a
reasonably thorough prebuy. I still believe that buying a Van's is no less
risky than buying an out of warranty certified plane.

On Sun, 16 Jan 2005 18:42:31 GMT, BeaglePig wrote:

Thanks, just as convincing as the original post.....

Ok, now that I had a moment to research, the post was by Ron Wanttaja
who also was/is the author of an article in Kitplanes magazine in the
October issue. Maybe someone who subscribes to Kitplanes can grace us
with a summery of the article.

I posted just such a summary to this group less than three weeks ago. How time
flies when you're having fun...

http://tinyurl.com/4r3mh

Ron Wanttaja