Decisions,Decisions,Decisions

Monday August 10 2009
Life is full of decisions and so it is in aviation. Deciding to build an aircraft and then add a converted auto engine is enough to make any grown man cry.

Lets go back to the beginning, Learning to fly expensive and then once you have your license it is expensive to pay for the hours of pleasure, then family commitments, like new children, house, house extension all erode our disposable income hat can be spend on our hobby.
That is why it makes sense to build your own aircraft. This must be cost effective, because buying a comprehensively prefabricated kit costs money big money, because you pay for all that prefabrication.
Same for aircraft engines in the 100Hp - 150Hp range boy the prices make your eyes water. That makes it easy to choose an auto conversion. After all aircraft engine manufacturers are still building the same basic engines developed in the 40’s and 50,s while auto engine manufacturers have moved with the times and taken the goal posts wit them. Auto engines are modern ,reliable ,light weight powerful and did I say powerful yes powerful. they surely are.

So Why am I sitting here with decisions, decisions, decisions ?
Well the cost factor can be taken are off to keep costs as low as possible by doing as much as possible yourself but this brings its own set of expense factors. Like what you may ask, well like testing the functionality and reliability as well as safety of my converted auto engine. Yea life is no free lunch.
Additionally as aircraft homebuilders we are allowed to design and use materials of our own choosing. This opens up a whole new world of pain and pleasure and experimentation.

I sat down and thought I would build a simple 2 seat aircraft that can be put in the air for a modest sum of money.

Turns out that weight specifically my weight and persons in general are getting taller larger and heavier so choosing a homebuild design from the 40’s or 50,s is going to bring its own set of problems.

For a start materials that were plentiful then may now very well be very scarce ,read as in EXPENSIVE.

I decided a small basic wooden single seater with modest Hp a cheap engine a slow cruising speed would be ideal. WRONG when I sat down and looked at the prices of timber, plywood, and now gasoline it is probably cheaper to rent a plane form the flying club and see more countryside and take along a child or 2 or even the wife and small child or two. (Never be selfish when you are married, boy does that fester with your better half.)

So I seem to have travelled full circle and no stand at a point where I have to make a decision to give up the idea of building an aircraft and just rent or design my own to suit my requirements. Yea I am a sucker for punishment.

So to do this properly I will sit for a while and draw up a list of performance parameters, cost limits, time to complete the project,
What the aircraft must be able to do, the flying characteristics and any thing else I can think of while I am making that list.

Till next time, have a good day.