Congrats.........I'd love to do something like that

Here is one picture. It was with my camera phone and the quality is a little poor but you get the idea. The cameraman was my father and all I had was the iphone which he had a hard time figuring out. This was a t/o and low pass down the runway for the photo.
http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h2...r/IMG_0172.jpg

This was in between flights when I was checking over all of the connections and control surfaces to make sure it survived my landings.
http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h2...r/IMG_0171.jpg

The plane flew GREAT! It could use a tiny tweaking in the rudder trim as it requires a small amount of right rudder now but that is a simple fix. The prop is a ground adjustable and as it stands now the ground roll is 65 feet but the cruise is only 75. We are going to re-adjust that this morning to get a good compromise and are hoping to get 95-100 cruise and a t/o distance of 150 feet or so. It is all trial and error and we like to tinker around with it. The plane lands great and is extremely forgiving, I was coming in very fast and progressively getting slower as I got used to the feel. Even coming in very hot the plane still was landing and turning off before the halfway point of a 2100' runway with ease.I almost forgot to mention that it climbs at 1100 FPM! I am going back to the field this morning to do a little more "work." Thanks for your interest.

That is GREAT - been looking forward to this. be interesting to see what you can get when you adjust the prop. 1,100 fpm is going to seem like the space shuttle to your dad after the Cub...what is that, almost 4 times what he would get on a hot day?

Thanks for posting - glad it went well and glad you were satisfied with the results.

Very nice work, definately an "eventual" dream of mine to build an experimental. You and your dad obviously used some great craftsmenship and came out with an outstanding product!

Did You get the float add on? I am really wanting to do something like this in the near future, and seriously considering using the rest of my enlistment bonuses on one...

I did not get the float add on. The airplane is equipped for floats and is all wired and plumbed for them with the panel indicators and switches all run as well. Once I get a few hundred hours on it and enjoy the summer we will put it up on 4 wheel amphibs.

I plan on using a local CFI to get my CSES in the airplane to do it for a few lunches and the cost of fuel. I am going for the commercial so I can then give my father his seaplane rating in the plane to save money. Since we both own it we can train in it but being experimental I can not train others in it.

hmm smart you are.... Sounds sorta like yoda i thought

USMC,

Man, this is a cool thread. I hope the updates keep coming.

What other resources did you use? EAA? How did you determine which engine monitoring equipment to use? What about other avionics? Man, I have so many questions that I don't know where to start. I've been seriously considering building an aircraft for the challenge, and something to keep me busy on a rainy day.

Ask away guys because this is where you get the knowledge to make it all happen.

The build manual for the aircraft was next to useless so it was (barely) a reference. Where we got most of our build help was a forum (go figure huh) called wingsforum where it is the single largest source of builders of the same airplane, we all bounced ideas and photos off of eachother for the past year and a half with builders at every stage of the game. We also went to sun n fun and took 10 thousand photos of every part of the plane to have as reference material. Last but not least we called the three dealers who sell them and they are hands on everyday and were a big help.

The EAA was really no help to us during the process, we just never ended up having a use for them.

As for engine monitoring equipment...research online. I wanted the dynon efis but it had no GPS which would cost exta and take up panel space we did not have. I ended up finding the enigma which included engine monitoring, efis and GPS all in one. You could buy a seperate GPS, EFIS and engine monitoring system which would have been each better at what they do then what we have but this is a VFR airplane so it is much more than we even need.

basic airspeed indicator and altimeter for backup and the radio is a non tsod icom single comm which is lightweight and innexpensive and the fact that it is exerimental we dont need to spend the extra cash on TSOd equipment (it is more than tripple the cost) we bought a used KT 76A transponder on ebay yellow tagged for 700 bucks which was a great deal as well. The rest is online searches for the intercom and such.

Engine, the rotax 912uls was the best bang for the buck, it had a bad rep years ago but is really taking over the industry of the light sport arena. It burns next to no fuel, can be maintained by us, burns 4GPH of auto gas or 100LL and is lightweight with a 1500hr TBO.

You get the idea..tons of research with 80 percent of that being online.

The best part about experimental is you just do what you want, research and development, try a few things and see what works. If its stupid but it works....it aint stupid!

Funny, the local EAA chapter was not only worthless, they were downright rude to me when I was talking to them at an airshow a couple years ago.

I've been looking at this guy: Sport Pilot Ready Kit Aircraft: STOL CH 701 light sport utility kit plane - the ultimate short take-off and landing sport kit airplane

The production facility is about 50 miles from my home and I plan on taking a tour soon. Wick's aircraft supply is also not too far away, on the drive from home in STL to IND where I'm based. I have an A&P buddy who has a Katana with the 80hp rotax and he loves it. Very well designed with huge support network. I've also heard about the problems the ULS had but to my knowledge those have been fixed and it has become just as reliable.

Bare basic is what I'm looking at. VFR day, maybe night and a transponder so I can go in the mode c veil around STL. At this point in my life, I don't have the time/money to do it but maybe in a couple years. I might as well start looking into it.

Have you been in the Hangar the entire time or did you start at home? Also, I'd love to see more pictures of the build process.