Cheapest experimental aircraft

[RyanShort1]

Some of you are apparently interested in other aircraft besides warbirds (ie. Gary and his cute little racers). I am curious if there are any homebuilder types here who could tell me what the cheapest / most economical / most efficient homebuilts are. Also, what would be a fast build but not buying some expensive kit.

Ryan

[bdk]

Stits Playboy might fit the bill for a single seater.

[Kyleb]

Depending on how cheap/slow you want to be...

Legal Eagle - 1/2 VW powered, and could possibly be built as an ultralight.

The various Wayne (?) Ison designs - the Mini Max, V-max, Hi-max, etc. Some of these can be built as ultralights.

The Volksplane. Designed to be very simple to build.

The Preceptor Ultra-Pup is a Cub-like 2 (*) seater. I've seen 'em done as L-bird lookalikes. * The two people need to be small. VW power.

If you want a true aircraft engine (the prevous designs are VW or 2 stroke powered), a Baby Ace is a good choice.

A Fly-Baby should be inexpensive to build, but is a decent sized project and uses any of the small Continental engines.

All of the above listed designs are fairly slow.

If you wanna go faster, you might try a KR-2. Faster, but not for big people. Has two seats, but the people had better be small. VW powered. Probably a 135 mph airplane in real world use.

The next step up is probably a Sonex. With the 6 cylinder engine, you're pushinig $40k to get airborne. You can plans build one.

Beyond that, you're getting into RV territory. Can't go wrong there, but you're in for $40k hit, even if you're a scrounger. There are lots of RV's out there that cost $80-100k.

If you look hard, you can find well built RV's with minimalist panels for <$50k. Not bad for 200 mph, aerobatic, good X/C performance and a pair of seats.

[skybolt2003]

Some of you are apparently interested in other aircraft besides warbirds (ie. Gary and his cute little racers). I am curious if there are any homebuilder types here who could tell me what the cheapest / most economical / most efficient homebuilts are. Also, what would be a fast build but not buying some expensive kit.

Ryan

I think the Sonex is aout the cheapest thing you can build these days, and meant to be quite efficient as well. It's not my cup of tea, but . . . A friend of mine has a set of plans and it is dead simple to build.
The Whitman designs were always held up to be the cheapest, and most efficient designs of their day and still are too.

[Downunder]

If you like the ultra basic, then there's the DREAM CLASSIC for $3500.
And another $500 will get you struts rather than wires.
http://www.airdromeairplanes.com/TheDreamClassic.html
Some other WW1 types there also.

[RyanShort1]

Thanks for the information so far guys! I've got to admit that right now that Preceptor Pup looks really cute and fun. That'd also go well with the L-birds work I've done.
I don't have any immediate plans, but am kind of thinking it'd be fun to have a project like that someday. There are two guys at the church where I'm a member that are into homebuilts.
Keep 'em coming.

Ryan

[bipe215]

I would think you could build a Fly Baby for under $10,000. They are incredibly fun and you can play fighter pilot all day and use 4 gallons of mogas an hour. They also look great in the blue and yellow trainer colors.

Steve G

[Obergrafeter]

Ryan have you seen the Fly Baby at 5c1 in British Camo? Looks pretty neat. I think one would look cool painted up like a P-26 make some spats and your there.

[RyanShort1]

No, I haven't seen the FlyBaby up there, though I was on the field not yesterday, but the previous Sunday around 5:30pm. I don't have the money to do it right now (am working on the CFI rating) but am thinking that down the road a bit, when I'm hopefully ranching and doing CFI work that I might want to start a small, simple project in a barn. Last year I was severely tempted to look into a built Fly Baby down towards Corpus that was on Barnstormers for 8K.
If I had LOTS of money, I'd be thinking seriously about a Sonex and trying that guy's electric conversion that flew at Osh. I'm just thinking about finding something relatively cheap to operate for keeping some proficiency up and building time. Maybe also for a LSA flight school.
Keep 'em coming.

Ryan

[Zachary]

Pietenpol Air Camper!!! You can usually find aircraft spruce on www.barnstormers.com that someone bought for a project and never used, and a used Continental A-65 or something similar for anywhere from $2000 to $6000 dollars, sometimes less. I think most guys are building their Piets for around $10,000 to $15,000 with engine.

Great 2-seater airplane.

Zack

[MX304]

Another good one is the EAA Biplane. I usually see a few on Barnstormers in the 12k range.