Are composite homebuilts dying out?

On Aug 13, 11:18*pm, rich wrote:
I did some of the body work myself as I built, and when the parts were
all done, I took it to a body shop. The guy's painting it complete for
$4K. And I'm real happy with that. He's done a great job of doing the
finish work, and it's ready for paint now. At first, they sanded right
through my wing fillets. But I took some of the cloth out there and
showed them how thin it was and from then on they did good work. And
one nice thing about composites is they repair easily. I started
building the 3 in 1991, afterwards the kids came into my life, plus
working full time, but I kept at it. But one thing I did find kind of
strange is with the parts all out at the paint shop, I've been so used
to being able to walk out to my shop and work on the plane, it's
strange having no project to work on. I'm sure once it's flying, going
out to the airport and tinkering with it will keep me busy.
I know what you mean about the mods, I've done some of those too.
Most from the advise of other builders I'd talk to at LAL and OSH.
The thing is with a Glasair, the final assembly can't be completed
until the thing is painted. Unless it's put together complete, then
taken to an aircraft painter. And they all charge $12K to paint a
composite plane. Good luck finishing your KIS Cruiser....
You know, when I started the Glasair 3, I thought it would take me 5
years to build. Now 18 years later I see I made a big miscalculation!
Rich

On Thu, 13 Aug 2009 07:35:50 -0700 (PDT), BobR



wrote:

Rich,

First I would like to congratulate you on finishing your plane. *I am
also building a KIS Cruiser and have been working on it for almost 14
calendar years. *I suspect that life has gotten in the way of your
completing your project earlier as it has with my project. *The fact
that you continued to completion says a lot about you and your
dedication to seeing it through.

There are several issues that I have repeatedly seen with composite
aircraft that I have not seen as frequently with the RV's which seem
to be the dominate kit on the market.

The first has to do with quality of the supplied molded parts.
Because of the low volumes most kit manufacturers have to deal with,
they have little incentive to invest in the best quality molds and the
refinements needed to make parts that require little additional work
prior to assembly. *This means that the builder must spend substantial
time in cleanup, fit and finish. *Every composite kit company that I
know of still has extensive labor involved and can not automate their
processes like Van's has done with much of his fabrication process.

The second is builder enhancements (modifications) to the original
design. *These changes can be anything from a minor change to some
major redesign to the entire airframe. *I have seen hundreds of RV's
over the years and few of them make anything beyond cosmetic changes
and those that do are usually experience builders on their n'th
build. *I know in my own case that I have made dozens of changes,
mostly minor, that have cumulatively added several hundred hours to my
build time. *If I had exactly followed the original plans...I would
have been flying already.

There are many more differences but the last that I will hit on is
Finish. *That is where almost every time gain a composite builder may
have achieved in the construction process is wiped out. *The standards
for finishing a composite aircraft are unreal and really totally
unnecessary. *With a few notable exceptions the builders of the RV's
will complete and fly their planes with no paint or will spend little
time and effort beyond having a paint shop spray them. *That's not
saying they aren't great looking planes but they don't get anal about
a rivet showing or a slight ripple in the wing or fuselage surface.
That is expected when working with metal. *The glass builders seem
obsessed with producing a finish that has the quality of a fine
mirror. *Gawd forbid that the fabric weave should happen to show
through.

Having said that, I must admit that I have already got a couple
hundred hours into the fill and sand process that preceeds the primer
and more fill and sand. *I just can't help myself.

Finally, there are still a lot of composite kits being built.
Lancair, Glassair, Velocity, TeamTango, CompAir, and a host of others
come to mind. *They will continue to be a major player in the market
but lets also admit that when it comes to great, affordable, and
buildable aircraft...Van's Aircraft are the dominate company as of
now.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Yep, when I started my goal was "Oshkosh 2000 by Gosh". Now my goal
is simply to finish and I no longer try to project a date. There are
just too many things that get in the way. Right now, the project is
in a hangar that is an hours drive from my house. I can work on some
things at the house but most of the work is at the hangar now and I
can only get down there on some weekends. When I started, all the
work was done in a nice large garage with my airport less than five
minutes away. A job change and relocation put the project in storage
for almost five years and financial problems with some family members
ment another two years of inactivity. I am limping along now making
progress as the money becomes available but it remains a slow
process.

Enjoy your new plane when you finally get it flying and keep us up on
how the flights are going.

Bob