It’s worth noting that the FAA treats things like the An-2, Yak-52, Nangchang CJ6 etc. much differently from 51% homebuilts.
There have been some beneficial changes in FAA Experimental Exhibition: anything ex-military can now have the ‘non FAA notified’ operating radius limitation completely removed, and (according to a DAR friend, who actually writes the operating limitations) it’s not clear that the operating radius requirement is still required for any Experimental Exhibition aircraft. Also, before some date (about 25 years ago?) none of them had the operating radius operating limitation anyway and for those airframes nothing has ever changed.
There are subcategories below Experimental Exhibition and within most of them nothing I’ve written above is affected but FAA made sure the AN-2 specifically is in a subcategory where it’s much more highly restricted, so as to prevent any kind of practical use. That was to clearly intended prevent to importation of AN-2s after the end of the Cold War from impacting US suppliers of utility planes. That’s a strange and arbitrary thing but it happened.
I have occasionally had ideas about importing a Bölkow 207 to the US… an aircraft never FAA type certified that is also not ex-military and not aerobatic. Hence my digging into this a little.
The good news is that ex-military training planes (which for FAA purposes includes USSR stuff like Yak-50s and 52s) are now subject to pretty much the same rules as Experimental Amateur Built. It’s pretty much wide open for them again.
Isn’t the FAA also clamping down on the obvious and widespread abuse of the “51%” rule?
One can argue that the rule is a charade anyway and exists merely to support the charade that homebuilts are allowed to benefit from the more relaxed regime because they are owner-built, but for as long as the rule is there it risks being enforced.
Isn’t the FAA also clamping down on the obvious and widespread abuse of the “51%” rule?
Abuse of the 51% rule has been evident but not widespread under FAA rules. The FAA conducted some kind of activity to evaluate the situation within the last few years and in doing so gave their tacit approval for many of the ‘factory amateur built’ programs now run by kit manufacturers… as long as they stay within the letter of the law, as opposed to the original concept of home building at home. So that FAA activity was actually beneficial.
There is an argument that giving kit builders some guidance at the factory is beneficial to safety, so my observation was that FAA intent was to make sure that the builders were actually involved in building the aircraft!! The FAA role includes promoting US aviation as well as regulating it – they don’t derive or demonstrate power by shutting down non-problems.
I would certainly not want to build a genuine 51% of any reasonably usable aircraft. I would be looking for all structural parts to be properly finished, and I would think most prospective owners would have difficulty wiring up any significant avionics. What does that leave? Designing the panel layout, getting somebody to make it and wire it up, and bolting the main items together, I guess.
Many of the people who homebuild will do all of this, though. Someone capable of building an RV-6 is usually more than capable of learning what it takes to wire up the aircraft (and have by then demonstrated an ample supply of patience!) Certainly the homebuilders I’ve met don’t shy away from this stuff.
Peter, as I already stated, a very large part of the work is neither intellectually challenging nor hard to learn. Stitching dacron to wing ribs or to fuselage tubing, pulling blind rivets on an all-alu (there is some concensus that it takes more or less 5000 of them, on average), sanding a mould for epoxying then lay up some more epoxy then sand again then lay up yet more then sand yet again before you think it corresponds close enough to the required shape – all of these take lots but really lots of time especially if something gets botched up – and something will, in most projects even quite a lot of things will get botched up. Sanding the epoxy mould is particularly unchallenging iow BORING.
Actually it is the more intellectual tasks that take least time. Then again, designing the panel is part of the “dreaming” stage, not of the “building” so it doesn’t count, properly speaking.
[[later edit]] Or otherwise said: from my own experience, I fully subscribe Alioth’s words just above.
FWIW, take a look at my own “new” panel under construction, and don’t ask how many reams of paper I spent at dreaming it, even if I have a setup close to WYSIWYG, editing the base info in postscript…
http://imgur.com/a/2Szdv
(( if this is considered too much of a thread drift, I am ready to post it to a thread of its own, just let me know – or do it yourself, of course ))
Is that the plane called a “Eurofox”?
Close, but no cigar. It is an Apollo Fox. Takes an expert to tell them apart, though, easier to look at the stickers.
The Eurofox was derived from the Kitfox by a bunch of clever Slovakians.
The Apollo Fox was derived from the Eurofox by some even cleverer Hungarians.
Cleverer in this context meaning aeronautically but not necessarily commercially.
what would it take to move you to a non-CofA type?
If and only if the rate and severity of accidents caused by mechanical/engineering issues/oversight starts looking the same, which I’m not sure is possible.
There’s a huge difference between the certified and experimental category.
