Certified Vs Experimental Aircraft, Watch This Before You Buy 

As per usual, another fantastic video Matt. Some other things to consider when weighing experimental vs. certified is the potential for return on investment. You can lease your certified aircraft back to a school, or use it along with commercial pilot privileges to make yourself money. Generally, that isn't the case with experimental aircraft.

Quick background on me - airline pilot 20k plus accident free hours. I have owned several aircraft throughout the years. Going forward it will ONLY be experimental ! I don’t want someone or some regulation FORCING me to pay out a huge chunk of money for something that might or might not be an issue. I’ll decide for myself thank you very much.

Experimental for me, I love the whole build process. Looking forward to the first flight with every part I complete. Maintenance cost over time and operating costs will be lower for my Sonex B once completed and flying. Proven design by a trusted kit manufacturer is a must. Do your research, live in reality when deciding how much to spend. Figure out what you want to do with it, adjust your budget. Then do it. Its not the money, its the commitment that kills the dream.

Went through these pros/cons myself about 7 years ago and decided on experimental. I built and now fly a Sling 4. Love it! But, yeah, the insurance is super painful...

It's cheaper to just buy an experimental than build one now. Many people think they want to build, then buy all the stuff and realize they bit off more than they can chew, especially if they are still working full time, have kids, etc. Sure the Velocity is cool, but it's going to take you a hell of a long time to get it done. Some people take literally decades. Many just give up on it and sell it. Or they lose their medical along the way. As a new pilot in a newly built airplane, you shouldn't even be considering taking any passengers for at least a year or more depending on how much flight time you get. Not everyone is going to be thrilled with your "new" airplane. People still have jobs and kids and other stuff going on. It's not like they're dropping everything because you decided to fly into town one weekend. It's your hobby, not theirs. So yea, visions of flying all over with one or more passengers, is a fantasy. Most of the time the right seat will be empty. Oh sure, you will give some "first flights" that last maybe 20 minutes. But for the most part it will be you and your flight bag on the seat. All the more reason to buy a single place, folding wing Sonex. Save paying those hangar fees. And no, it's not designed to be hauled at 55+ mph on a trailer to the airport. Think more like 40mph max. You want to explore new places. Great. But you're a tightwad with barely an extra $5 for a burger. Well $12 now, depending on where you go. So you land at some airport in Colorado. Ok, now what? You have to get a ride to do anything, but you're too damn cheap, or broke to spend the money to rent a car, or Uber, or pay for gas to have a friend pick you up. It's a long damn walk from the airport to town or other sites. Doing other stuff besides just landing requires planning and decision making. Starting to sound more like work. If you're still working, your weekend trip may make you late getting back because of weather issues. But you're a real pilot with a real mustache and you popped some rivets. Your da man. You will dodge or fly through it all to get back to work Monday at 7am, no problem right? Your boss will totally understand if you're late a day or two right? That inexpensive kit suddenly got a whole heap more expensive when it was all said and done. Maybe the wife is none too happy about that and the amount of time you spend on it. Maybe you're too broke now to afford a hangar. So now you're going to park it outside and rubber band a bunch of 1 inch thick foam all over the top of it because, well, hail happens. And winter. Ahh yes, the joy of parking in the cheap tie down areas. Better add a few extra hours for shoveling snow, de-icing, pre-heating, sitting in your truck with the heater on high, cursing high hanger fees and the guy who has every vehicle known to man other than an airplane, stored in his hanger. Remember aviation is fun. When you land, all your relatives will gather at the airport when it is 20 degrees out and windy, so they can take a ride in your cramped tin can death trap with crappy heat. No worries, you made at least 1 takeoff and landing in the last 90 days. Got to keep those skills sharp. Hangers are much cheaper 2.5 hours from your home. Are you really going to drive that distance regularly to just go fly for an hour? Oh you own an old dually pickup truck too as your only vehicle? That fuel bill will be fun. You bought a finished experimental and then had a minor wing dinger that needs fixing. Who is going to do it for you? Having some engine trouble on that Rotax or perhaps a Mazda rotary that the last owner said was smooth as butter? Going to roll the plane down to the local Mazda dealer and have them work on it? Lycoming, Rotax, Mazda, it's all the same right? You just need a wrench and a pair of pliers. How often are you REALLY going to fly that thing? Average yearly hours for private pilots is roughly 65 hours. That ain't much. How much of that is just flying locally versus going across the country and seeing all the great geologic formations known to man and touring the dining spots of the local towns? You're on that frequent car rental discount program right? Oh, it's four hours before sunset and you just landed. No time for that car rental and town tour. You don't like to fly at night and need to head back in about 30 minutes. You can take some cool photos of the fuel pump at the airport. Who doesn't love a vast collection of fuel pump photos on their walls to remind them of all the great airports they landed at. And always remember, any moment, disaster may strike and have you plummeting to the ground. So every spare minute of your day should be spent on additional training, reading, and practicing emergency procedures. Every conversation you have should revolve around your airplane, and cool gas pumps that were out of service when you landed. But you should have known that ahead of time so you could have used an alternate airport. You need more training. Reality bites sometimes. Trying to justify an airplane purchase is fruitless. Just understand, you are taking dollars and throwing lots of them out the window. With some airplanes, it will be a large shop vac just outside the window running non-stop sucking every dollar you have and then some. If you skip the hull insurance to save some bucks, you better be willing to toss $45k+ out the window because you screwed up a landing. No worries, you have a spare $45k cash on hand to sort things out, right? Get those lotto tickets. A billion will go a long way in helping your aviation hobby. You might even attract some large chested women to do the bouncy co-pilot thing for BoobTube videos. Don't forget the misleading thumbnails. It's all about the bait and switch. Get those clicks.

I look at it this way. When a kit builder sells his/her pride and joy, most don't figure in the 2000 hours pains taking labor into the sale price. A company like Cessna will roll into the price every manhour used to build it to include all of the overhead. That is why you get way, way, way more bang for your buck buying a used kitplane. Most kitplanes are much more efficient than production. Many burn mogas making it way more economical. Fling a C-150 is like flying a tuna boat. The same sized and powered experimental will be a hotrod in comparison. If you want to fly an uneconomical tunaboat, more power to yuh. It doesn't make any sense. Production planes cost way, way more and have much less performance than experimentals. The choice is obvious.

Dang! Lots of things to think about. Never thought there would be such a large difference with regards to the insurance coverage costs

I am on my 2nd Mooney in my 20 years of flying but now I am making the switch to an experimental, a Velocity XL-RG. I wanted something that gave me similar performance to my Mooney but was going to be less expensive to operate and maintain as I get closer to my retirement years. Yes, the insurance is more expensive but the operational and maintenance costs should more than make up for that.

Great video Matt. All great points.

Cool video. So many people will love following this trip. Great b-roll... Very Polished.... Love it.

That was hands down one of the best videos on the topic, I’m trying to eventually get my own aircraft and this put experimental into perspective and I’m still drawn to it because I enjoy building things thank you

All great points my friend👍

Really nice job. Great content. Well presented and well produced. I’ve had my heart set on a Sonex for a long time. Did the factory tour and lots of research. But as I focused on my mission(s), I ll probably end up with a certified. Appreciate you putting this out there.

Great video Matt. Though I have ordered an experimental kit, will build it over next few years, I will buy a simple certified plane to build time and stay current. Maybe you could create a new video on this topic- what to do while building an experimental.

Certified vs Experimental: Twice the price, but half the worries.

Great video, thanks

Thanks that's a good idea

I think experimental is the way to go for me. And you really got me thinking when you said most people are flying alone for the most part which brings to mind the merlin psa.

Great video. Thanks for sharing. I am currently building a Zenith Cruzer on my channel. So you can guess what direction I went.

Thinking of building a dual engine contra rotating propeller system for my airplane to prevent any significant threat due to single engine cutouts / failures

One specific capability that might be important to you is aerobatics- an acro rating is fairly rare with certified aircraft, but there is a much wider variety of acro-capable experimental planes.

Building experimental is like building 80% lowers. Best method.

One thing most people dont think about that im personally dealing with right now is lead times. The lead time on a used certified is 0. The lead time on a kit plane can be YEARS depending on how you do it. If you do the whole kit at once it may be a year, but if you go component kits, bit by bit, you are talking about years of twiddling your thumbs due to the next section of parts having another 18+ month lead time.

Hey, would you mind sharing what has been the avg hourly operating cost?

If you're comfortable with it, it's hard not to look at the value proposition of building an experimental. If you can maintain a Sonex that you built, the cost are very low. The insurance cost difference becomes negligible. If you didn't build the airplane or you don't want to do the maintenance, experimental definitely loses it's edge. It's difficult to recommend buying a completed or partial experimental unless you have really good reasons to believe it was built correctly and maintained properly. An airworthiness certificate does not guarantee the safety of the airplane. Failures being due to incorrectly assembled experimental airplanes are not uncommon. Be prepared to go through the entire build manual and look over the airplane.

Good post. However there is another aspect that should be discussed. Without spending a lot of money it’s hard to beat the fun factor of having an aerobatic homebuilt aircraft. I built a Sonex and flew it and other Sonex aircraft for 19 years and although I didn’t do much serious aerobatics, I liked to throw my plane around a lot. To purchase and maintain a used certified airplane to do the same things would have cost me MUCH more money than a certified plane. All the planes I’ve flown were generally fun to fly but even the tamer experimental ones were more fun than just about all of the certified ones.

Would love to hear where you all see SLSA in this discussion. They are factory built to ATSM standards but I don’t think they are considered “Certified”. But you can do flight training or lease back. Thoughts?

Experimentals!!! Look for a bushby mustang. One of the best strongest fastest kit built out there.

I go for experimental

I owned a Cherokee 180 and I loved that airplane. It was easy to fly and dependable. That being said it got more and more expensive to maintain as things needed replaced. My last annual before I sold it in 1996 cost me $3k and I did all the grunt work. My next plane will be an experimental. Better performance and cheaper to operate.

One more thing that is almost never brought up is Life Insurance. I don't know of a life insurance company that covers death in an experimental aircraft.

I own an experimental aircraft. Despite all you saying being generally correct there are also arguments which lead for me to chose a certified airplane: 1. In my home country (Germany) Experimentals can't be registered for IFR. If you want to fly IFR, you have to go certified. 2. The advantage of saving money with maintenance is also the downside. Shops will barely do any maintenance since they don't know the aircraft. If you are (like most people) short on time, you will spend significant parts of the year screwing around on your aircraft instead of flying it. 3. If you don't find the time building an aircraft, buying na experimental is generally at least as expensive as a certified aircraft. Four seaters are almost always crazy expensive

Have you ever priced insurance with liability only? Curious of the difference with experimental. I don’t currently have liability but I have before certified.

Would you know if you can fabricate your own fuselage in an experimental plane? the lead-time is about a year now. and still, meat the home %51 home built requirement

What about restriction of types of flights you can do and where you can fly?

I am new to this, but from a builders perspective, and experimental seems to give you so much more control over finding parts, better pricing, more options to replace and install parts, and a wider range of parts (say an ipad rather than a Garmin GPS). How about self insure the aircraft? Is that legal?

Do experimental aircraft have any limitations on where they can fly? Do they have to avoid certain airspaces that certified dont? Do they have certain restrictions on how they can fly? Like altitute.

I’m both 👍

experimental all the way, because i build it my self, maintain it myself, it a child for me ps : use engines that can support mogas, its gonna help you a lot XD

Me, a person with 3 hours of flight time, and zero thought of actually buying a plane or completing my personal pilots license. If I get to that point, experimental is the way to go; they look good. Certified crafts look ugly.

This numbers of insurance cost is about of the all coverage airplane or for 3rd party only?

Great overview. Thank you. That flag though...

What is the difference between an Experimental Exhibition and an Experimental Amateur build? What are the differences in restrictions and reporting requirements?

I mean its really hard to total an experimental and survive so...

simply get a plane that climbs quicker than ya insurance.

I have a 172 .....selling it ..the cost to do anything on certified is stupid ......want a avionics package 10k certified ....experimental minus 50%

I don't have time or space or desire to build my own plane. I also need 1500lb useful load, which only exists in twins

experimental

Experimental planes for self transit is cheaper, kits, vs mass reproduction. Experimental more custom to your likes, needs, wants, and experimental. Like buying a bag of socks at at made in China Walmart. Size six won’t fit a size 12 foot. ( I don’t shop eat Walmart my socks fits but cost $26 a pair not $26 for family size bag of socks. Lol.) and my socks have lasted about four years now. #smartwool

go ukrralighta nd build in wood and epoxie laminates...then fatigue is not an issue and insurance either...🤷‍♀️smaller folded up in your garage and no airport cists..so bith of your options are not an option...

Experimental

Where do you live? No insurance needed?

Wow 20k hours in a certified plane with all AD’s complied with and all Service Bulletins complied with, go fly a Minicoupe kit plane knock off watch the stall on it , killed the second owner. Baby Great Lakes crashed several from LPR. Be careful what you wish for. Most of the homebuilts over 22 years being based at LPR crashed except ones very meticulous maintained and built. The Routan planes almost all did not crash but two from LPR. You don’t know squat about homebuilts or aviation sorry have you survived flutter on the elevator system , I have . One wrong maintenance move or design flaw will get you that’s why the AD’s are there . Many are from after death = AD’s . The FAA makes folks comply with something very dangerous on your productions planes , homebuilts your the test pilot and your odds are not good if you are not super meticulous on every step of the home built process or there is a design flaw. Good luck you”ll need it 20k. 42 years , flying give me a production plane all AD’s complied with engine within TBO and no magnesium tail feathers. Wake up FAA magnesium tail feathers 50 years old not good.

Too many in Aviation Both Building and/or just Flying think they are much more SKI:LLED than they actually. Really many are by the Grace of God Still Alive ant not a Static on Probable Cause/Balancario.

If you want to be honest and put all the cards on the table, are you as a pilot missing the point? Flying with family or going up with a friend is a risk. The risk being responsible for killing a family member or dying catching a ride with a friend. Reality sucks, by not admitting the risks of flying and taking your family up is tantamount to criminal negligence.

Why are you Considered More STUPID when killing ones slf in anairplane than say an Automobile/motor cycle/Boat/Rec Vehicle?

Ha, the flag , whatever 🙄