Well, I started on my Ridge Runner 3 back in 2009. Between deployments, TDYs, having one child, and another one on the way, I am still looking at a partially finished empenage and the innards of a right wing in my garage. Not a lot of progress for three years since purchasing the initial parts of the kit. My question is this, how long did it take you to complete your kit plane, not necessarily in terms of hours spent building, but in terms of the duration of the entire project. I have a cross-country move coming up in a few months to go along with the new kiddo showing up in May. This PCS puts me in a job where I won't be deploying for about three years, so hopefully I can make some real progress there. Now, to find some "backcountry" strips in Mississippi to go with the airplane...

877 days.

At the time ('06-08)I had 2 kids in high school (baseball, vollyball, band, etc, etc), a FULL time + job and even did a little fishing. What it came down to for me was instead of TV or other after dinner I went to the shop EVERY NIGHT. My wife was great: I cooked and she cleaned up. I spent at least 1 weekend a month 'blitz time'.

Best thing I've ever done.

fwiw

k

Sounds like that is a good way to get a few hours in a day. My plan for now is to get up a few hours earlier than usual and get cracking at it for an hour or two before work in the mornings, seems like that might be a good way to make up for some lost time. My two year old "helped" me a little on saturday, I never thought a Cleco could fly so far after getting launched out of the pliers.

4 years...working at it when dad felt like it. Work of art now. Good luck!

Zenith 801... Picked up the kit in Feb 2001, flew it in April 2004, around 3000 hours build time.

I am a building contractor and in that same time frame I built for customers, 3- 2500 sf residential houses,1- 9000 sf house / toy storage building, remodeled two commercial offices, built a 15,000 sf commercial complex for Jackson Hole Aviation, plowed snow, maintained rental property and was able to build the 801 in my spare time. .

if there is a will............ there is a way...

Ben
www.haaspowerair.com

highlanderninerKC wrote:877 days.

k

Did you happen to count the hours for your highlander build?? I am about THIS CLOSE (a little daylight between thumb and finger ) to buying a highlander kit myself and always loooking for fast build times by others. I've heard some say it took 7 months, and others who took 3+ years, but of course calendar time is relative to the frequency of the building sessions. My goal, assuming about a 700 hr. build, time would be in the neighborhood of 10 months so I could be flying by summer of 2013! That equates to roughly 3 hours a day, 6days a week. Given my work schedule and lack of other commitments, I think this is completely do-able...

Six years. I was a Forest Service fire fighter. Between fires and Rx burning no time to work on my kit from April to November each year. The "Old" kitfox factory boasted a build time of 500-600 hours. My plan was to take my time and complete it in two years. Haw Haw.

My Kit arrived in September. I worked on it full time the month of December the first year while using my "Use it or lose it" annual leave. My shop was a metal shed with no insulation and a barrel stove for heat. I had cottonwood to burn, so had to constantly throw wood into the stove.

I didn't work on it again until I retired five years later. We moved across the state of Oregon during that time. Packing and transporting a partially completed kit was an adventure in its self.

I retired at the end of December. We lived in Lapine OR then...even colder than NE Oregon...so I had a metal "Insulated"shop built. My heat in this one was a little propane space heater that I moved around to where I was working in the shop.

I was at a stage of construction with the wings needing to apply structural adhesive...needs to be warm...so couldn't do much work on it until mid April. I then worked full time on my airplane until mid November. The plane was almost complete. Just some final details to do on the engine instalation. It was inspected and give an AW certificate the following May.

I was a 300 hour Cherokee pilot with a brand new tail wheel airplane. Learning to fly a tail wheel airplane had me beleaving the saying that nose wheels ruin pilots. Then another move..this time to Central Washington, requiring getting an new test area in my operating limitations is another story in its self.

I finally made my first flight in my kitfox another six years later. Yes, thats 12 years after my kit arrived and six years after I completed building it. Can anybody top that?

I signed the contract for the second factory assist Tundra program at Oshkosh '06 and then went to Granby, QC that fall to build it. The airframe was completed during the normal two week assist but I asked for another week to do wiring and mount the engine and panel. Due to health reasons and not having a hangar with a door to work inside the winter months of 07, it sat in a borrowed Van trailer. I finished the hangar and had the plane ready to fly 08/08/08. From the first day of the factory assist to a flyable aircraft (not painted or inspected) it was 1 year and 10 months. I was crop farming only during this time and had sold the livestock, so I had available two months in the late winter of 08 and one month each of two summers following the factory assist. Three week assist plus four months additional. Funny how just living stretches the experience.

7 MONTHS. IF YOU DON'T HAVE ANYTHING TO FLY WHILE BUILDING IT WILL MOTIVATE YOU TO WORK HARDER AND LONGER!
NBI

I have no experience building a kit plane but I have been talking with a guy that is in the process of building a Highlander. He has owned the kit for 8 years but didn't start working on it till 4 years ago. He figures he has 2 years left at the rate he is going. He did say that people have put highlanders together in a couple months

I think CG has a good point; if you don't have anything to fly then you'll be motivated to finish it.

I've built two airplanes and like everything else in life the answer is "it depends." My RV-4 took me 5 years to build. My Rans S6ES took me 23 months to build. It depends on the type of construction, it depends on the experience level of the builder, it depends obviously on how much time you can devote to the project. The main thing I found to keep myself motivated is to just set small attainable goals. You're not building an airplane, you're building an aileron bell crank, or you're building a flap. Pretty soon you find that all those subassemblies have magically formed an airplane.

My Highlander took 19 months. Hour wise it figured right around 700hrs. I will say I enjoyed ever minute, well there was a couple of times where I caught myself saying some pretty colorful words . I worked allmost every weekend and tryed to get in at least a little time each evening even if it was cleaning up. It is just my wife and I now and she was my supporter. Flying off my 40hrs now 20 to go.

Dad built an RV-3 in 18 weeks, but he was retired and the shop was in the basement. I've been working on a midget mustang for 10 1/2 years so far (not from a kit), I hope to fly it in another year.

I am building a Falco F8L. Not a backcountry plane, but I have my 170. When I started, I was thinking five years. Now four years later, I think I will be done in 5 years. Of course there are life's distractions. Had to build more space to build it. Wife and 2 kids and their activities. Skiing & sailing. Maintaining and flying my 170B. And the work to pay for it all.

When will I be done? Hopefully sooner, but I will declare it a success if I am done before the kids are out of high school. (8 more years should give me enough time, right??)

Plans-built wooden airplanes are not for the quick builder.

Plans built Pegazair. Not a kit... 3 & 1/2 years.
Doug

http://www.ericproellphotography.com/pe ... #h1469a84c

My first airplane was a scratch built Pitts Special. It flew in 1983 after three years of head down work while having a full time job with strange hours. I was single and often had parts strung all over my house. That made dating interesting. Then I sold it after 88 hours of flying it and bought a house with the money. That of course was a long time ago. There have been certified airplanes in the mix but I'm now building a Bearhawk Patrol from scratch. I've had the plans since feb '02 but officially started in feb '09. I have just about all the weldments complete and I'm buying stuff for the panel etc. I think I'm about ready to throw down the 16 large the finished wings sell for. I'm old now and work a cargo flying job around the world, tonight I'm in newark, tomorrow night I will be in Bahrain. I get really motivated when I layover in Anchorage and look at everyone's toys parked on the tie downs and my walks to Merrill field . I don't want this project to be a static display. I figure I can pull down overtime while the Bearhawk factory drives rivits. I admire guys that finish a scratch(or kit) built airplane in a short time. Interesting stories on this thread.

The Bearhawk took 3.5 years. I was working full time and raising a family plus built a hangar at the same time. The family got involved with the plane and it turned out to be a really fun project for all of us. We certainly learned a lot not only about aircraft systems but our self's and work habits too. It was a great life experience.

Most of it was built in our 2-car garage which is just off the kitchen. This made it easy to work on even when there were just a few spare minutes. One thing I noticed is it was really important to do something everyday to move the project forward. It is really hard to start after laying off for a few days. There was one point in the build when I was having some stomach issues and didn't work on it for nearly 4 months, though.

Having experienced people, such as help from folks in an EAA chapter is a big plus; it is a lot harder to build one all by yourself. I was fortunate in that regard and had some great help and cemented some very good friendships along the way.

brown bear wrote:Plans built Pegazair. Not a kit... 3 & 1/2 years.
Doug

http://www.ericproellphotography.com/pe ... #h1469a84c

Cool! Definitely not something you see every day.

My RV8 took three winters, or about 2 1/2 years. Just worked on it for 3 months or so each winter.

Brown bear, does that pegasair fly as advertised? How slow can you go? I have a neighbor who has the plans and lots of pieces for one, that will not be finished. She has a fuselage and lots of drawings and sheets of aluminum.

Did you happen to count the hours for your highlander build??

I did count the hours (time in, time out) but I've never had the heart to calculate it! I figure it was real close to the 700-800 hours. I was a first time builder so had a lot of learning to do.

It was absolutely worth it!

k