My grand papa showed me how to do this just like in the video, said it was the best way. He died in a mysterious hanger fire one day, never did find the cause.
I really like your no BS straight to the point unapologetic style. Its awesome. Its the way aviation should be. I was looking at your videos to see which one people found the most help just looking at the views.... 2.5k, ok 1.5k cool 2k yep 10k... Oh....fuse covering...hmmm.... really? Then I realise your very cute other half is doing the feminine "Tada" pose....Of course. What would a bunch of men click on the most....😀 Great vid. I am going to watch them all. I like that your giving a summary of the experience not a how to set of instructions.
Kits shouldn't be a thing because of the bizarre effort it takes. Imagine buying a car from Volkswagen as a kit and have to spend 1500 hours putting it together only to cost about as much as a factory finished one. Unthinkable. Mike Ojo the youtuber built a Sling 4 for over 300k$ while a superior factory built plane from Gogetair costs the same. Kits is a symptom of an ailing industry rather than an advantage. It's nice that it's allowed but the reliance on it is very unhealthy. Also a composite construction can be much simpler and faster to make from factory than the many parts of a truss plane. It's an illusion of simplicity.
I think your video is very good. But, you are talking to a very small audience of like minded people. I have not built a Kitfox, but I did build a Challenger from Quad City many years ago. You obviously went into your build without fully researching exactly what you were getting into. Before I started my build I knew exactly what it entailed, and I felt comfortable doing it all. You can't rely on the words of someone trying to sell you something in an advertisement. You have to do your own research. I enjoyed building my plane, and let me tell you the manual provided by Quad City was worthless. It was like 500 pages that had been xeroxed so many times parts of it were not legible at all. There were photographs in there that resembled an ink blot test. The reality is that building a kit plane is not all that much less than buying a used certified one. The major benefit building a kit is it falls into the Experimental class, enabling you to do most maintenance yourself, you can even do minor modifications to your own plane, which save you a ton of money in operations costs.
If your experienced in building things you should have easily understood that their marketing of "anyone can do this" is far from true. This is far from basic garage building
This is such a pain! 😢. (Removes a few dzus fasteners with a quarter twist and the entire plexiglass piece comes off). 😂. Spoiler: drain the gas, pull the pins and fold the wing. Add 15 minutes of drama for effect….
Seems the issue is your not the builder type your a flyer.... A builder doesn't need to fly, he gets to fly but enjoys the building of the plane too while the flyer just wants to fly and sure he may get some satisfaction from building his own plane it will never be the same as the craftsmans pride.
Rans manual was terrible to correct their mistakes in the manual I found so many mistakes that the plane I built would never be capable of actual flight. I called my airplane the S-10 Lemon.....
Fabric coverings and finishings for aircraft is a black art in itself, all the lotions and potions, all the layers of products and preparation, its ridiculous. There is alot to be said for an all metal or composite aircraft. Its the kind of thing that you only work out how to do it by the end of the job and all the learning mistakes are in your aircraft once you're done
Apparently he’s never heard of Trent Palmer … literally put KitFox on the map… has a 100 videos of what a kitFox is capable of… but yeah let’s hear what a true amateur has to say about a plane he’s barely flown..🤦🏻♂️
Trent has an extra 50% Hp on his set up. And Trent NEVER talks about the difficulties of building one, or any real difficulties. Trent is all marketing. The kinda guy you can know for 10 years and never know.... Trent is that guy. This guy is bearing his sole. And yes lets hear the amateurs story... if you don't want to hear it... F#$% OFF.... why are you here... did his story hurt your little angle feelings?
Go to a helicopter company and look at how we drain fuel out of the Astar. Astar has a nice drain set up, some have a safety lock to prevent inadvertent draining in the bush from the bush or snow pushing up on it.
Well that just killed the kit fox for me. The folding wings are a huge money saver for now needing a full sized hangar which costs as much as the plane.
Having built 4 Homebuilt aircraft and number 5 on order ( been 16 months) I can attest that going experimental is the way to go . No one knows your particular aircraft better than you do. It’s extremely rewarding to build and test fly your own aircraft. With certified aircraft becoming beyond the reach of affordability for the average pilot, home building is the only way to go outside of renting.
Thank you…this was so informative and honest. At the end of it all, congratulations, it’s a hell of an accomplishment that you should be so proud of. I love to think I could do something like this but the reality is that I would very likely lose interest and fail. I love the idea but I have no experience building anything and would require a lot of help. I’ve thought this would be a great retirement project when time was no issue, but I really need to be honest with myself about my skill set. This video was really great to watch, thank you and again, congratulations
Thanks for the video, you make great points I’d add, if you can buy a certified plane today that meets 90% of your missions for 150k, then do that and treat it as an asset, much easier to resell. But not sure what you get anymore for 150k even for 200k adjusted for friggin 3 year crazy inflation. Scrappy is more like a 1M$ project…
I have a friend with a model 7 and a 915, he says he travels at 110mph. I would consider to install a Zipper kit in your engine and bump it up to 115Hp. I have a model 4 with a 912 and that is plenty of power for me.
I'm 61 years old and not learning to fly in one of those if I had it to do over again things . U2b has sorta kinda pointed that out for me . This is the first video I've seen of yours definitely subscribed and very interested in the kits . I can see that a plane kit requires 3 or 4 types of professional tradesmen's skills Very interesting. Thanks 'all the best .
Can't believe that anyone would ask why you need to keep a fuel reserve - fricking ground pounders - Oh shit my plane is out of fuel... let me just get out and push it over to this cloud and park it and walk to the nearest gas station with this 2 liter soda bottle In case ground based geniuses still can;t figure it out - sometimes there is this thing called weather, and you might need to land at a different airport 50 miles further away, or there might be air traffic and you might need to go around the pattern a few times before you can land.
Years ago I considered a build. Thought it would be like building a model plane. Thank God I didn't invest in that project because there is no way I could have completed it back then. Today? I think there is no way I could complete a project such as this. But I'm certainly learning a LOT from your update vids.
