In article ,
says...

Tom De Moor wrote:
If you wanna build, build.

If you wanna fly, buy.

If you wanna design ... then what? (The opine needs to rhyme.)

(From the OP: "I'm looking into educating myself ... then to
either design my own plane....")

The numbers of flying kitplanes in the 'for sale'-departement are just
enormous, some of them are even cheaper than the components.


Didn't catch the design-desire. Designing your own would indeed be the
sole reason why I could ever imagine building a plane.


Why do you suppose they are cheaper? ;-)

Do not know: some of the experimentals -mine too- sport avionics with a
price tag that would make some grown-ups weep. Yett these items did not
influence the selling price by a lot.

With homebuilts there are indeed also buckets but then some homebuilts
are made to standards where Piper and other Cessna can only dream about.

I was rather hesitant into buying an 'experimental'. So I looked for
certified airplanes: I found situations on certified airplanes that
maked the most fraudulent used car dealers look like angels.

On the first (certified) plane I bought, I had to send a lawyer with a
big stick in (the seller didn't twitch an eyelid), shortly there after
followed by the CAA of the land in question. The last move proved the
right one: got my money back and they retook the plane with all its
defects.


Can't really comprehend why somebody puts 10 years of work, 80 kUS$, a
broken marriage in a kitplane, then flies it for about 100 hours and
goes on to sell it for 50 kUS$... in order to buy a new kit.

If that were the norm, it would indeed be a psychological puzzler. But of
course that combo isn't anywhere near the norm.

I've been actively looking for the last year and for some reason the
planes on my 'go and check'-list turned out to be in that categorie.

I bought mine: metal, low-wing, O-200 2-seater. I kinda like it :-)

Good for you! Nothing like owning - except maybe building. :-)

Definitely not building. Designing and then building: maybe but you'll
sure spend far more time and money. But then there are always exceptions
proving the opposite.

It's like the old days: we used to make racing cars. When we got it
right (2-3 seasons after commencing) our cars were indeed better than
the competition as we eyed the details much more. But it turned out that
we were working at around 5 US$ per hr... and winning races didn't earn
the differance :-)

It may be a bit crude but if some-one is thinking that building a plane
will land him a cheaper plane than buying one, he is probably fooling
himself.

Just my 2 (euro)cents, a pity that the Atlantic Ocean is so wide as for
the moment US-pricing seems so sweet to us ;-)

Tom De Moor