Why am I building an RV?
I often ask myself "what have I gotten into". Why would anyone
want to lay out all kinds of money, take anywhere from 1-10 years to build a
plane, and disrupt a normal life, etc. etc... I don't think I'm like most
builders in that I didn't have a lifelong dream to fly or build an airplane of
my own. I was bitten by the flying bug about 4 years ago and have my
brother-in-law Bill to thank (?). At that time he was considering building an
RV-6 and had his preview plans set. I looked it over and thought "impossible".
Here's me (left) and Bill at Oshkosh.
After spending the next year getting my private pilot's license,
I started to see what this flying brotherhood was all about. Another friend of
mine had bought a Piper Cherokee, Bill had bought a newly restored Tri-Pacer (he
decided he had no place to build an RV) and I started thinking about how I could
get an airplane of my own. I began by browsing the Internet, Trade-A-Plane
and a lot of the classified postings at my local airport. The debate started as
to whether I should keep dreaming about buying a new plane (of course I'd have
to sell the house and live in the hangar), lay down a large chunk of cash for a 30
year old plane or just continue to spend $60 an hour to rent.
After weighing these options, and seeing no solution to my
dilemma, I checked out some of the Kitplane websites. Nothing seemed interesting
until I checked out Van's. I liked the looks, style and performance of the
RV-7A, and the RV-9A had just been released. I think this is when the building
bug really took a big bite. After seeing the number of RV's flying and being
built, the simple construction, the different RV Wings throughout the country
and looking at all the other builders websites, I decided on the RV-9A.
I spent the next six months trying to figure out how I
would/could do this and the last 5 months remodeling the garage into a plane
building workshop (See Skunkworks). The empennage kit arrived on January 15,
2002 and I'm finally on my way.
I know now that when I'm finished with this project I will have
1) a brand new airplane 2) a brand new airplane that I can work on and 3) the
freedom fly whenever, wherever I want to. It does seem like a long way away from
completion, but taking the advice from other builders to proceed one day at a
time, one kit at a time, I think I will eventually get there and the rewards
will be HUGE! I'm already practicing my "RV Grin".
Thanks for letting me ramble.
Rick
I often ask myself "what have I gotten into". Why would anyone
want to lay out all kinds of money, take anywhere from 1-10 years to build a
plane, and disrupt a normal life, etc. etc... I don't think I'm like most
builders in that I didn't have a lifelong dream to fly or build an airplane of
my own. I was bitten by the flying bug about 4 years ago and have my
brother-in-law Bill to thank (?). At that time he was considering building an
RV-6 and had his preview plans set. I looked it over and thought "impossible".
Here's me (left) and Bill at Oshkosh.