Hey, at least you've flown one. Thanks for rubbing it in! (kidding of course) [emoji1]

We are done building. The FAA inspector cannot get here until possibly May sometime. We've checked into the DAR route with our dealer out of Anchorage but apparently DAR's are extremely hard to come by in our state. Seems few want the liability these days of signing off on amateur work. It's a bit frustrating, but as my buddy says who owns this one, "it's all been an exercise in patience." So...we continue to sit in the cockpit and make airplane noises.

A heartfelt thanks for the check up.

gb

Denali wrote: I think the kit makers do somewhat of a disservice when they overhype the rapid assembly time of their kits. First time builders like me would fall into this alluring promise, buy the thing, and end up overwhelmed and never finishing it. Years ago on some other website that I can't recall, I wrote a thread titled something like "Thinking the Unthinkable; Not finishing your Kit" . I am the kind of guy who takes an hour and a half to watch the TV show "60 Minutes".

I'd like to see easier and broader "pre-assembly and preparation" of kits, and the FAA demonstrate a charitable approach to the 51% rule to allow the manufacturers full opportunity to make the kits truly buildable in say 250-500 hours. Ten years to taxi kits may satisfy the experienced purist builders who enjoy machining / carving their own props. However, for a person who is thinking of getting into aviation for the first time for recreational purposes via a home-build, 1500 hours may be a deal breaker.

I think a lot of us are knowledgeable and sufficiently handy to assemble these kits. It 's more of an issue that many of us can't spend hundreds and hundreds of hours in our garage banging rivets. I'd almost be happy to buy an 80% kit that slams together in 150 hours, and yeah, I'd sacrifice the ability to do the yearly EAB conditional inspections ( "annuals"), but I could do everything else. I'd still have the benefit of being able to do repairs, installing experimental avionics, non-TSO, non ASTM, etc hardware.

Actually, I think the FAA is incredibly generous regarding the 51% rule. Look at some of the kits and "XX to Taxi" programs and it's hard to argue the FAA isn't pretty generous with giving credit to someone who does just a little work on a kit.

As to making these kits even easier/faster to build, two things happen then: 1) The price goes up astronomically due to additional labor by the manufacturer....check out the "XX to Taxi" kit prices. And, 2) I'm not at all sure that the E-AB community would be well served by airplane kits that are "easy" to assemble by just about anyone. The accident rate for E-AB is already pretty high. Doesn't take much imagination for me to think about somebody that "doesn't have the time" to assemble and test a fuel system, for example.....just one of many tasks that, done improperly, could kill you. And your passengers.

FWIW.

MTV

After a lot of boring drama, the inspection gets done today. The fence is sure getting high these days. Hoping for a good report, maybe a flight in the next few days.

And... First flight(s)?


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Chasing a comm gremlin. I keep telling him to just grab a hand held and go, don't need a damned radio anyway. May have worn him down, it's awfully nice this morning.

A bit late, but....

The first flight went fine and mostly uneventful phase 1. In fact now he has more than 50 hours on it including a trip to McCarthy, the dirty bugger.

@ GBFlyer

Wow. Nice plane and beautiful background. Also, RANS just introduced an S21 Model and apparently a LOT OF PARTS from the newer S21 can be retrofitted to the S20. One thing I saw mentioned was an option of Carbon Fiber Doors saving about 10+ pounds. Not sure what else.

A friend of mine attending OSHKOSH texted me with a bunch of S21 info.Of course all that stuff may not be available for quite some time.

The S20 fleet is just now emerging.from builders' garages. I will be looking forward to your flight reports and of course more photos. I am sure you'll be throwing in a few mods as well. Nice to see an S20 actually flying in a real live Alaskan environment.

GB,

Congratulations. That is certainly one beautiful build. Thanks for sharing with us along the way. As Denali said, looking forward to your trip reports and real world feedback on the airframe.

Brett


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Looking forward to hearing some direct comparisons to your S-7S. I'd expect about the same on the low end, but understand its faster in cruise?

It's a little slower on the bottom end with the extra flap angle and he hasn't put the vg's on yet. Haven't made a comparison on the top end with same size tires on both. I think it will be some faster but it won't run away.

Very comfortable, responsive, and flys nice. The fuselage is shorter than the S7S so your feet have to be awake for landing. The visibility out of the cockpit doesn't compare to the S7 at all. You've got forward and nearly no peripheral. Needs clear doors and boot cowl cut outs for off airport ops in my opinion and that may happen over the winter. Stretch to reach the panel and the throttle.

It's a nice airplane, but it ain't for me and that's OK, to each their own. Very happy we did the S7S.

That jives with my ride I had with Randy S. I have about 90 hrs to go before hitting 2000 hrs in my S-7S, and I'm trying to get excited about another airplane, but really, I'm still real happy with what I have. Maybe.... a third S-7. That elimination of the cross tube in front of the baggage area has advantages and disadvantages for my setup. Really, the single biggest thing I wish I had done was a side access door to the rear baggage. Especially as when I have the bike in place, my access back there is about half the width. I keep hoping I'll have a bad wreck so I can justify cutting into it and making it happen. It'd be a real simple mod both structurally and fabric wise if I was doing a major repair, on a finished and flying airplane, not so much, damn the luck Seriously! Joel and I were kicking ideas around as to how I could do it without any welding, at least get a triangular door above the existing CM diagonal. Even that has been an issue as I fly it too much to want to have it down for even a couple days. I had a takeoff from a narrow dirt road the other day that made me again appreciate the viz of the 7, hard to beat for sure. Then again, taking a lady to breakfast last week, with her in back of course it sure would have been nice to have her along side instead of in back. Maybe I need one of each, like you, but it's hard to justify a second plane for the (very) occasional ride I give, solo, I want a skinny airplane. The Cub guys are laughing their asses off about now!

courierguy wrote:That jives with my ride I had with Randy S. I have about 90 hrs to go before hitting 2000 hrs in my S-7S, and I'm trying to get excited about another airplane, but really, I'm still real happy with what I have. Maybe.... a third S-7. That elimination of the cross tube in front of the baggage area has advantages and disadvantages for my setup. Really, the single biggest thing I wish I had done was a side access door to the rear baggage. Especially as when I have the bike in place, my access back there is about half the width. I keep hoping I'll have a bad wreck so I can justify cutting into it and making it happen. It'd be a real simple mod both structurally and fabric wise if I was doing a major repair, on a finished and flying airplane, not so much, damn the luck Seriously! Joel and I were kicking ideas around as to how I could do it without any welding, at least get a triangular door above the existing CM diagonal. Even that has been an issue as I fly it too much to want to have it down for even a couple days. I had a takeoff from a narrow dirt road the other day that made me again appreciate the viz of the 7, hard to beat for sure. Then again, taking a lady to breakfast last week, with her in back of course it sure would have been nice to have her along side instead of in back. Maybe I need one of each, like you, but it's hard to justify a second plane for the (very) occasional ride I give, solo, I want a skinny airplane. The Cub guys are laughing their asses off about now!

Rainbow Ron makes a baggage door for Citabrias that requires no welding as far as I know. Maybe you could modify it to fit? Not sure how differently the tubing is run...

gbflyer wrote:

excuse my ignorance but,

is that an electric fence around your sleeping bag?

We checked out Swingle's baggage door when he stopped by. It's cool, they had a good amount of crap packed in that thing (I still don't know how ya'll did it, I needed three trips in the 206 for two people overnight). What ever happened with Milloway's external cargo pods? I personally think a belly pod would be the bees knees on the S7.

The other thing I forgot to mention is the way the cockpit floor is set up in the S20, the passenger has really no place to rest their feet except on or at least very near the rudder peddles. I'd probably figure out how to take the right side controls out if it were mine, and that is sad because giving a passenger a chance to fly it is a big deal to me.

Yes, that's an electric fence. That particular image was captured at the E. Alsek Landing Strip in the Glacier Bay Preserve in Dry Bay on the Pacific Coast. There is a nice cabin there but he felt compelled to camp outside to test his bivy and see if he could get eaten by a brown bear. As he did make it home unscathed, the electric fence did its job.

I was at Joel's a few days ago, and he showed me the foam form he started for a 7 bellypod, some time ago. Its not on the front burner it seems, he has other projects to deal with first. I want one bad enough to get rid of my belly mounted SwissMuffler, as much as I like it. He'd sell the hell out of them.

That reminds me, at a local bike shop I saw a dimpled roof top bike carrier. The composite material it was made of was "golf balled" in texture, for drag reduction I would guess. I may buy one and hack it up to fit the plane, just to get that material it was made out of!