Experimental Aircraft / Homebuilts

In typical no-nonsense fashion, Van’s Aircraft has issued a special edition of its customer newsletter to inform RV-12 kit builders of new avionics options. Dynon and Garmin both recently announced touchscreen versions of their SkyView and G3X systems. Van’s laid out the price and delivery details as they currently know them, including a set of […]

Why would anyone attempt to build a full-scale, airworthy replica of an airplane that never flew and for which there are no known plans? For a team of designers in Oklahoma, it’s all about recreating one of the most amazing airplanes ever conceived — the Bugatti 100P, a dream of Italian carmaker Ettore Bugatti, who […]

Last summer, General Aviation Manufacturers Association president and CEO Pete Bunce worked elbow-to-elbow for two weeks with a group of high school students. They were assembling a Glasair Sportsman kit plane at the company’s Arlington, Washington, headquarters — under the “Two Weeks to Taxi” program. Now, as part of the 2014 program in cooperation with […]

A new experimental airplane, the two-tandem-seat Thatcher CX5, has taken its maiden flight. Glen Bradley, who helped build and design the airplane together with the main designer, Dave Thatcher, was at the controls when the CX5 took off from the Jack Edwards Airport near Gulf Shores, Alabama. Bradley used one word to describe the visibility, […]

A group of 40 maintenance trainees at Emirates Airlines’ training academy have completed a Van’s RV-12 kit plane in their after-hours time. Construction took about two years of spare-time work. The light-sport aircraft is painted in Emirates livery and is on display at the Dubai Airshow in the United Arab Emirates this week. The RV-12 […]

Fiscal year 2013 was less unlucky than 2012 for fatal accidents among the experimental category. There were 55 accidents involving fatalities this year, compared with 73 last year, a 25 percent decrease. The accidents resulted in 70 deaths, down 18 percent from the 85 who lost their lives in 2012. EAA also reports that the […]

We received a press release from Lam Aviation concerning a novel type of aileron, which was said to have brought about remarkable performance gains on a Lancair Columbia testbed. Cruising speed increased by 12 to 16 knots, fuel consumption decreased by 20 to 30 percent, and rate of climb increased by 40 to 50 percent. […]

Van’s builders have been practically begging BRS Aerospace to offer its whole-airframe emergency recovery parachutes for the lineup of popular homebuilts – and now BRS has delivered by making the rocket-fired chutes available for the Van’s RV-7 and RV-9. It took some creative engineering to add a parachute to the RV models, but the company […]

On Saturday August 24 the National Transportation Safety Board will hold a seminar on “lessons learned” from accidents involving experimental amateur-built (E-AB) aircraft. Though some 33,000 E-ABs constitute a bit less than 10 percent of the U.S. GA fleet, the category accounts for 15 percent of accidents and more than 20 percent of fatal accidents, […]

Two teams of students participated in Glasair’s “Two Weeks to Taxi” fast build program, and the aircraft they helped produce were on display at Oshkosh AirVenture last week. During a ceremony at the Jeppesen tent, most of the students were introduced along with their teachers. After the two-week initial build period was completed, further assembly […]