Peter wrote:
So let’s just say that anyone intending to be guided by this should do their own due diligence
If you actually did read it, you would see it is no guide of any kind 
Peter wrote:
I know of someone who paid out nearly 100k only to discover the “incomplete story” afterwards.
I will put that (whatever it actually is) in the category of purchasing a bog standard certified aircraft, only to discover it needs a new engine, a new propeller and a billion “SBs” to be airworthy. All at a net cost far larger than the purchase price for the airplane itself. There are lots of “incomplete stories” like that in the certified world.
MedEwok wrote:
The fact that many uncertified aircraft are technologically more advanced points to a flawed certification system.
So it may seem, but the only working (FADEC) jet fueled piston engines are certified engines only, so it cannot be a fact when looking into it only a tiny bit more closely.
I will put that (whatever it actually is) in the category of purchasing a bog standard certified aircraft, only to discover it needs a new engine, a new propeller and a billion “SBs” to be airworthy. All at a net cost far larger than the purchase price for the airplane itself. There are lots of “incomplete stories” like that in the certified world.
The SBs may appear to be silly but most SBs and MSBs and ADs are issued for a reason. If I was maintaining and flying my own plane I don’t think I would regard the legal ability (in the non-certified world) to disregard these mods as something necessarily advantageous. Imagine the look on the face of a passenger when I tell him that my RV can keep flying with a dodgy crankshaft because it is a homebuilt Or mention that the transparent plastic tubing which runs about 5cm from his shoulder in the Eurofox carries avgas, but being non-cert there is no need for fireproof fuel tubing.
Also if you buy a plane and find that a load of expensive ADs need implementing, it just means some combination of:
and from what I have seen over the years none of the above are specific to certified or non-certified; they happen all over the place.
In terms of required maintenance actions, there is little difference between a properly built and maintained RV (say) and a properly maintained TB20.
Downtime is a huge issue in GA, and is found equally in both spheres. There is a difference in how many of the owners post their stories, however 
LeSving wrote:
I will put that (whatever it actually is) in the category of purchasing a bog standard certified aircraft, only to discover it needs a new engine, a new propeller and a billion “SBs” to be airworthy. All at a net cost far larger than the purchase price for the airplane itself. There are lots of “incomplete stories” like that in the certified world.
You can also put it in the cathegory of someone buying a lovely and perfectly technical jewel of an experimental only to find he can’t do what he wants with it as despite some misguided advice he can’t legally fly it IFR, he can’t cross the borders of 3 out of 4 countries around him without asking for permission e.t.c. These things happen all the time with ill informed people and folks who volonteer incomplete information.
Oh please! Since when did this site become a mouthpiece for the EAA, LAA, RSA or any other global or local association for amateur built aircraft, their operation and the finer legal points? Despite what you like to believe, the cornerstone of homebuilt aircraft is actually building them, maintaining them, restauring them. In short, getting slightly deeper involved than just flying them.
That certain individuals regard those activities as useless waste of time, but still want to take part in the fun, is their prerogative as free individuals I guess. But, don’t come back whining about having purchased one, and it wasn’t the one to one replacement of a Cirrus in all the ways you had imagined it to be (A Cirrus which you can’t afford anyway, not even a fraction of it). A rather amusing mix of nutcase and utter arrogance. I have absolutely no sorry feeling for such people whatsoever. But they do a service, keeping the market liquid.
What I wrote just a few lines above was:
For experimental classified aircraft (generally known as “homebuilt”) it’s much more fuzzy, mostly because different countries have different definition of what this is, and different “regimes” for how they are handled.
It should be easy to understand. Anyway, rule number one when thinking about homebuilt airplanes (purchasing or building) is getting in contact with the local association. Every country has one, and they are full of helpful, knowledgeable and experienced pilots and builders, and perfectly capable of explaining the rules, regulations and peculiarities in that country. Rule number two is becoming a member of that association.
Maybe I should add some pros, to get some balance here:
I think those bullet points are accurate, LeSving.
However, in “That certain individuals regard those activities as useless waste of time, but still want to take part in the fun, is their prerogative as free individuals I guess.” I bet that those (who bought a homebuilt built by someone else) are the majority. They are certainly the great majority of homebuilt flyers that I know. It was their decision to buy a built plane. You are free to slag them off (as a group) but it does not make you look any better than criticising say a Cirrus owner for [insert whatever reasons].
I guess one gets exactly the same things posted in some vintage car restoration forum, or spoken at some meeting when somebody turns up in a vintage car restored by someone else, or even in current model Porsche
They are certainly the great majority of homebuilt flyers that I know
Yes, and that didn’t quite come out as intended for a nitpicking mind, and can “easily” be misunderstood. What (obviously) meant was those people who get themselves homebuilt aircraft without the slightest idea, or interest, of what they get themselves into – and – complains about it afterward.
“But I read on EuroGA that ….”
There is another aspect of this as well. I know the regulations where I live, and the “neighborhood” that stretches hundreds and hundreds of NM in any direction. An area larger than UK, France and Germany combined. I keep myself updated, for the most part at least. Discussing imagined (or real) restrictions where those restrictions are purely bureaucratic nonsense by an opressing regime, and has no relevance to me, and discussing it with people who have no part or interest in the homebuilt community other than pointing fingers and twisting my words, isn’t really all that interesting. Nothing worth while comes out from this.
But I can add more pros (YMMV)
All this can be done, although flying a Starfighter and similar as PIC is rather unoptainable (for real) for the average PPL pilot.
Again, to keep it all nice and politically correct, YMMV.
If Norway is indeed the paradise you proclaim it to be, be happy. It probably has to do with the fact that while it’s EASA it is not EU or whatever. You certainly have more space per inhabitant than most European countries so that may be that people are more tolerant or ignorant at the same time of what is going on in fields which do not concern them. Surely some other populations might learn from that but they are sufficiently unnerved by the every day problems resulting of gross over population that they will always fight those which are easiest to succeed against. I suppose that is the situation why some of the countries where living conditions are deteriorating will fight GA first, easy target. Or why AOPA is wasting time going against FR24….
Fact is that in most of Europe what you have in the promised land of Norway is not so and it does not help but rather frustrate if you keep rubbing it into our faces that you can basically do what you want in Norway while most of us can not.
But this being a European forum for all Europeans who care to take place, what happens in Norway is exactly relevant for Norwegians or those who fly there. Which proves the point that unless you operate airplanes which all CAA’s HAVE TO accept as they are under EASA cover, then you are mostly restricted to flying in your own country. Which may be great in Norway but is totally useless in most other places.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
If Norway is indeed the paradise you proclaim it to be, be happy
Everything is relative. But I meant Norway, Sweden and Finland. Several other European states as well.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
But this being a European forum for all Europeans who care to take place
And what exactly is that supposed to mean? Unless we are discussing bureaucratic and operational peculiarities in the UK, it is irrelevant for “all Europeans”?
Mooney_Driver wrote:
If Norway is indeed the paradise you proclaim it to be, be happy. It probably has to do with the fact that while it’s EASA it is not EU or whatever.
The situation in Sweden is essentially the same as in Norway, and Sweden is a member of the EU, so it probably does not have to do with the fact that Norway is not an EU member state.
What is the relevance of the UK, precisely?
Post #56 contains a lot of disingenuous info which I hope nobody uses to help them decide which route to take in Europe.
