Experimentals

It’s said that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. In the world of homebuilt aircraft, usually more power is better than less, but it’s also true that power without control is just heat and noise. (And there ends your monthly ration of overused aphorisms.) Power is speed and climb performance, but it can also […]

As we discussed in Part 1 last month, after buying and testing a new Sterba wood propeller for my Hatz biplane, it was clear it had too much pitch. For reasons discussed in the previous article, I had decided to replace the old Sensenich metal prop with a new wood prop. Selecting a propeller for an Experimental aircraft […]

Touting changes that could “revolutionize” flight testing for experimental/amateur-built aircraft, the Experimental Aircraft Association says that the FAA recent draft guidance on Phase I flight testing could change from a pure hours-based system (25 or 40 hours for most homebuilts) to a task-based system that could cut flight hours and improve the quality of the […]

One of the most common places Experimental airplane owners look for performance improvements is the propeller, and many homebuilts go through several props in their lifetime. This is not surprising as propeller design, like many aspects of aircraft design, is an exercise in tradeoffs, but prop design in particular is a black art to many. There […]

It would be fair to say my plans for last April didn’t originally include building a rudder in my spare bedroom. However, when the opportunity arose to participate in Zenith Aircraft’s first-ever virtual rudder-building workshop, there was no way I was going to miss out. Since airplane building wasn’t something I’d tried before, I honestly had […]

This story originally appeared in KITPLANES. I didn’t buy this GlaStar intending to commit significant resources to the engine in the first year. Indeed, few of us intend to do that—but it happens. Who does that? But I always knew it was a possibility. My GlaStar’s Lycoming O-320-E3D, originally in a Piper Warrior, had seen […]

Throughout the 1980s, tandem two-seat homebuilt designs were firmly in the mainstream. Burt Rutan’s VariEze and Long-EZ were popular, and examples of Dick VanGrunsven’s RV-4 were showing up at Oshkosh in rapidly increasing numbers. Then came the RV-6, a side-by-side airplane that was destined to become the most successful kit airplane of all time. Everything […]

A series of transitions defines every pilot’s life. For Bill Anton of Satanta, Kansas, retiring after 35 years as an ag banker coincided with maturing flying desires, “from cross-country and aerobatics to fun flying out in the boondocks.” Now 72, “I’m thinking of how many more years of good flying I might have left,” he […]

Most of you probably remember the heady days of the early 2000s, when every year saw the FAA’s listing of the total number of homebuilt aircraft rise by a thousand airplanes or more. Every year, excited articles were triggered when the Experimental/Amateur-Built (E/A-B) fleet size expanded. “We’ve hit 30,000 E/A-B! 32,000! 33,000!” Haven’t seen such […]

Despite a difficult month of September, the number of fatal accidents involving experimental aircraft fell over the last year. From Oct. 1, 2019 to Sept. 30, 2020, there were 44 fatal accidents. Six fatals involved experimental light sport aircraft, one each in racing and R&D categories, and four in the exhibition subcategory. Most of these, […]