What are the implications for the owners of a kit built aircraft if the kit manufacturer goes out of business?

Most of the things that need spare parts on any aircraft, e.g. engines, brakes, instruments, are common to many types. The advantage of kit built aircraft is that the type specific parts were often manufactured by the owner in the first place, and the original builder or somebody else can just make another. It makes little difference whether the kit manufacturer exists or not. This situation is more difficult with certified aircraft, for which manufacturing parts may be more difficult within regulatory constraints and new parts are often not available – regardless of whether the airframe manufacturer still exists or not. ‘Repair’ by standard practices is a typical solution for certified planes, with 90% of the material being new.

The ideal is either to buy a kit built plane for which full plans are available, or something so popular (e.g. Vans) that if they went out of business other firms would move in to support existing owners.

There are kit built aircraft with specialist parts e.g. composite spars that would be very hard to recreate. Simpler parts can generally be fixed or copied.

I see no issue with N-reg (the US Evolution community seems to be amazingly relaxed about what happened there) but non CofA N-regs cannot be based in Europe generally (there is the German 180 day scheme).

For the OP, perhaps the most directly relevant registry would be the UK LAA, or whatever Ireland has (@WilliamF might know?) and then one has to ask how the sort of parts which may be required, and which are not standard parts but are specially manufactured, but are no longer available from the manufacturer, can be DIY-manufactured and approved, within the resource constraints of the LAA or whatever.

On most planes, CofA or not, these tend to be airframe parts, which may be structural, or parts of the controls, so not trivial. OTOH these are rarely needed unless the aircraft has had a lot of abuse or corrosion, or been crashed.

If you are on the UK LAA G-reg and based in Ireland, you have the additional dimension of the LAA trying to block you from keeping the plane outside the UK, which they try to do using various under the table means, which is not great if you need their co-operation.

kwlf wrote:

There are kit built aircraft with specialist parts e.g. composite spars that would be very hard to recreate.

Sure but there are more certified aircraft for which that situation is true… I own and fly two of them In either case, somebody, somewhere can make the parts but the legalities are less involved (or non-existent) with a kit built plane.

Agreed, but if you have the plans for a plans-built aircraft, you are almost guaranteed to be able to repair it.

There are many aircraft available in both kit and plan form, sharing the benefits of both.

Hi,
I’d not be a big MCR01 fan having spoken to a recent owner who was very happy to be rid of, and the new owner who had big bills before a brake failure did some harm. These guys would all be classed as handy pilots, so if they thought it was tricky I don’t want to try to disprove them. ILAS are the Irish version of the LAA. The questions raised;

getting space parts. Can kit aircraft owners make their own parts or buy alternative parts?
Given you are coming to an arena where a recent LAA magazine gave instructions on how to make your own cable tensionmeter, the creative state of some people is boundless. There is really nothing that can’t be fabricated or sourced by a creative owner. If you have a complete flying aircraft you always have a perfect pattern. I watched a Jodel 1050 wing being constructed from old drawings, with text in French, which turned out with degree perfect washout built in. That convinced me anything is possible. You can raise a project number under most organisations and once they accept it you can modify/built parts to your hearts content.

Or is it a big ticking time bomb and sooner or later your aircraft becomes a pile of junk for the want of space parts/manufacturer support?
No I don’t think so. Does a permit aeroplane really suit you is the question I would ask.

Would you buy a homebuilt aircraft if the manufacturer was gone out of business?
Personally I wouldn’t buy one either way but thats just me. There is no reason not to if you like it and if the price was right. The market for homebuilt aircraft is alot more fickle than certified airplanes. A friend who has had 6 RV’s in a row told me the bubble is gone for them in the UK and they are now well back by 20k+ in the last 6 months. The market from EI reg permit airplanes would bring tears quicker than custom.

My €0.02 as usual is worth what you paid for it. Delighted to chat you anytime on the phone.

William

Jodels are wood-and-fabric, and plans are available for all of them. But modern composite aircraft may be different, if the kit included prebuilt parts.
The Europa now comes with wings partly built. He original one had foam cores. I don’t know if a wing could be replaced if the manufacturer disappeared. A very unlikely problem for Europa owners, and maybe Liberty wings would fit.

dublinpilot wrote:

Is it business as usual for the owners?

It always has been, and always will be. What’s easy to forget is that the builder/owner is the sole responsible for an experimental homebuilt to be airworthy, or simply in good condition. These “two weeks at the factory” aircraft completely undermines that fact. You can certainly build an aircraft in two weeks at the factory, but this changes nothing about the responsibility. The builder is still fully responsible for every single rivet and nut even though he has only done what he was told (whatever that may be within two weeks).

There is nothing wrong with this, but it makes the builder/owner helpless if the factory goes out of business. Still, no more so than for certified aircraft. Lots of people are able to make parts, and this is after all easier for non certified aircraft than for certified, at least in principle.

dublinpilot wrote:

sooner or later your aircraft becomes a pile of junk

So will everything if they are not maintained.

Interested to hear about the RVs as I’ve just been watching the market recently. RV4s/6s have been advertised around the 50-60K mark and 7s/8s at 80-100k. I heard of a newish RV7 which apparently went for 128K. Obviously what people advertise for will be more than most people will pay, and what people claim to have been paid may be more than they really were.