Experimentals

You never know quite what to expect from CubCrafters these days. The company started by the late Jim Richmond in 1980 grew conventionally enough at first, refurbishing the Piper Cub in its many forms and then seeking to improve the design with more modern materials and practices than could ever be envisioned by Piper during […]

Kitfox Aircraft showed not one but two Experimentals powered by the new 160-hp Rotax 916 at AirVenture 2023. We caught up with Kitfox’s Brandon Petersen, whose own Kitfox has pride of place at the corner of the company booth. Builder of the “no-compromises” airplane, he describes the performance and capability of Kitfox’s newest model. For more information: www.kitfoxaircraft.com […]

Van’s Aircraft responded to reports of cracking of dimpled parts found in recent kits here at AirVenture on Tuesday morning. The defects are the result of changes in the process for laser-cutting parts by an outside vendor. From February 2022 through June 2023, Van’s transitioned some parts from traditional punch-press manufacturing to an outside vendor […]

Part of Van’s Aircraft’s public forum at AirVenture this morning focused on the development of the high-wing RV-15, which made a splashy debut here last year. Skeptics might wonder if much is happening given that the airplane on display here looks a lot like it did last year. But that would be to ignore the tremendous amount […]

In the early 1960s, a young Jim Katz was absorbing page after page in Air Progress magazine, and when he saw an article that included three-view drawings of the Bowers Fly Baby, his eyes widened. “Man, I could build that!” he said to himself. That thought never left him. In 1971, when Jim was in […]

We’ve talked in general terms about how to mount the electric motor from the Zero motorcycle into the eXenos and covered the electrical connections and wiring in detail. But what about all the fiddly bits? As anyone who has ever built an airplane knows, the devil is always in the details. So let’s look at a few […]

“Some wounds never heal, and for me it was the Honda Mini Trail I couldn’t have,” says seven-time Reno Sport class champion Jeff LaVelle. “It was $280 back then and it might as well have been $280 million.” And so began Jeff’s obsession with speed and freedom and winning and, eventually, airplanes. He couldn’t swing […]

Airplane owners are caretakers, according to the more philosophical among us. Each man leaves his mark on the plane passing through his care before he and machine separate to others, and ultimately, their destinies. Anyone doubting this might consider our present exhibition, an intriguing white Pitts Special most recently named Smokin’ Hot and once again […]

Rewind to April 2016 when we attended Sun ’n Fun for the very first time and stumbled across a mockup shell of a rather intriguing and thought-provoking Experimental composite aerobatic aircraft. The Saurenman Aero Works (SAW) REVO left both of us asking questions, pondering the viability and performance of such an aircraft and thinking, “We’ve […]

Builders who conducted their own Phase I flight testing who say that the last few hours of that endeavor did not involve sitting there watching the hour meter tick toward 40 are either being dishonest or involved in a project really stretching technological boundaries. For those building a “typical” modern Experimental, where the airframe and […]