AOPA Goes Homebuilt?

[smithhb]

Originally Posted by RV8iator

As you wish..
On of may all time favorite movies..

"Prepare to Die"

(I love that movie as well.

[rmartingt]

You should read the book... it's even better.

"Hello. My name is Innigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die!"

And more on subject: I saw a magazine at the local bookstore the other day; on the cover was something like: "Affordable flying! ($new_airplane_name) for only $1000 a month!"

Umm, sure...

[N941WR]

Originally Posted by ergie63

We may not have noticed, but the advent of repeatable small batch mass production technology behind kit aircraft...

This technology will bring more engines to the homebuilt market, not just aircraft kits. Look at the Jabaru and Rotec engines for another example of this.

BTW, with regard to GA and AOPA some people would say:

Inigo Montoya: He's dead. He can't talk.
Miracle Max: Whoo-hoo-hoo, look who knows so much. It just so happens that your friend here is only MOSTLY dead. There's a big difference between mostly dead and all dead. Mostly dead is slightly alive. With all dead, well, with all dead there's usually only one thing you can do.
Inigo Montoya: What's that?
Miracle Max: Go through his clothes and look for loose change.

(Love that movie!)
I have to believe that we will make a come back and be stronger for it. Who knows, that comeback may be headed by homebuilts.

[Greg Dillon]

Originally Posted by rmartingt

You should read the book... it's even better.

"Hello. My name is Innigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die!"

And more on subject: I saw a magazine at the local bookstore the other day; on the cover was something like: "Affordable flying! ($new_airplane_name) for only $1000 a month!"

Umm, sure...

I quit reading 'Flying' magazine when they came out with the 'cheap jets' article.........

[RScott]

AOPA Pilot's emphasis on planes only Warren Buffet & Bill Gates can afford is way out of line from what AOPA's members fly or can afford to fly. But it is the big bucks manufacturers who pay the bills. When was the last time Pilot had an ad for a homebuilt? Why should Van's advertise in Pilot when they cater to millionaires?

I am guessing there is more to it that the above, however. It seems that all Pilot's writers are IFR, multi-engine qualified and these fancy planes are fun to fly. Hey, cool, for this story I get to fly a Lear jet!

When I first attended Oshkosh in '94 or '95, I talked with an AOPA rep about EAA & AOPA joining forces to recruit new pilots--EAA had their Young Eagles, AOPA had just announced their program to mentor new pilots. The AOPA guy said that you'll never see the 2 organizations get together, implying there was some sort of friction between them.

Now to stray off topic a little, when I wrote to AOPA about working to develop a new unleaded, high octane fuel standard because ethanol was rapidly being mandated by states, the reply I got showed AOPA was mostly interested in supporting the high compression high horsepower engines and they implied we'll just have to get by on our own. Note that it was EAA that developed the autogas STC, not AOPA.

I renewed my AOPA membership, but haven't put their sticker on my vehicle. They don't care about me, I won't advertise them.

[Chino Tom]

I too was pleased to see our segment of aviation acknowleged in AOPA's Pilot this month. I have often thought the Experimental portion of GA was largely
ignored by AOPA. It would be interesting to know what percentage of hours flown is done by experimental aircraft in relation to their percentage of the GA fleet. My guess would be that we fly our airplanes more than the average
spam can owner. That being said, IMHO we should all support AOPA and its efforts to protect GA. From user fees to urban encroachment on our airports it seems AOPA stands mainly alone in the fight for us (as members of the GA community). It's Phil and his gang on the hill and in the faces of the media
trying to get the story right. In the end, AOPA's efforts help us retain our privelage to fly more than any other organization. That's why we should try to avoid "the what have they done for me lately attitude" and consider sending a contribution to the AOPA PAC. I do.

Respectfully submitted.

[John_RV4]

Anybody else notice that it's pretty common these days for your average RV7/8 to come out of the basement tipping the scales at close to $100k and 5 years of sweat equity ?
Not exactly cheap either....

So says the six fingered man !!!

[RV8N]

Originally Posted by KPmarc

For starters, when I was a staffer on AOPA Pilot (1988 to 1999, plus a special project in 2000), the association proper didn't have a huge influence on the editorial content of the magazine beyond the service items--political stuff, local airport issues, etc.--that appear in every issue. The flight reviews, product reports--the meat of the magazine--was up to the editor, still the extremely capable Tom Haines. (Point of trivia: I was hired by Dick Collins [something he probably still regrets] then worked under Mark Twombly and then Tom Haines; that's three editors in 20 years, amazing editorial stability for a big magazine.)

Anyway, Tom and his predecessors worked like most editors: You have an idea of what your readership wants, and you write toward that target. Some stories are assigned, some are suggested by the staffers, others come in over the transom.

Marc,

Is that how the stories originate at KP? I'm just kind of curious why KP has had such a big push on stories of production airplanes. I mean, it is "Kit"planes, isn't it? There are other magazines that are running tons of articles about these light sport a/c. Why is KP drifting into an area that it traditionally hasn't covered?

Respectfully submitted (but really want to know because I want to read about homebuilts not production),

Karl

[KPmarc]

Karl:

We get accused of doing too much SLSA (ready-to-fly) coverage, but the truth is that in the last year or two, the reviews have amounted to not much more than Dave Martin's Light Stuff column, so 2 pages out of 60-some editorial pages an issue. In 2007, we had a total of 36 pages SLSA coverage, including the buyer's guide, which I intend to move to electronic form only in 2009, the next time we'd do it. Even with the directory, that's less than 5% of our total editorial pages.

It's true that for awhile there, in 2005 and early 2006, we did cover a lot of the SLSAs hoping that many of them would become quickbuild (beyond 51%) ELSAs; that familiarity would be beneficial to the readers and to us as we looked more carefully at supposedly forthcoming the kits. But that part of the market has just not matured and other readers, like yourself, questioned why we were writing about them. By and large, since the middle of 2006, we haven't.

Maybe there's confusion over the types of LSAs. We have pushed Light Sport Experimentals (either Experimental/Amateur-Built [51%] or ELSA) quite a lot because our readers say, in person and in our recent survey, that this category is high on their list. We treat these much the same way we would larger kit- or plansbuilt designs.

Two recent cover subjects, the Rans S-19 and the Texas Sport Cub, were both EX/AB aircraft, not SLSAs. In fact, I don't think Randy Schlitter has the production line up for the S-19 yet, but he is definitely shipping kits for the amateur-built version. But it can be confusing because the S-19 will be sold as an SLSA as is the Legend Cub. I have been fairly relentless pointing out how much better some of these designs would be under the (current) freedom of the EX/AB rules than as ELSAs or SLSAs. Anyway, maybe you saw those and thought we were covering ready-made SLSAs.

That's a long answer to a short question. Sorry.

As for our planning process, it's er...ah...fairly organic. I have an idea about larger topics, like the metal or composites series (and the Ron Alexander fabric series to launch in the July issue), plus the avionics series Stein is writing for us, and make it happen over the long term. I watch the industry and try to fly the newer models; can't wait to fly the RV-12 myself, actually. Then we get story suggestions from our writers and from elsewhere. These make up probably 30% of the total.

In any case, if you look closely, you'll see that the vast majority (like 95%) of our coverage centers on Experimental/Amateur-Built aircraft with an emphasis on building techniques and what we'd have called utility features at AOPA: how to do this, how to do that, how to actually get your airplane finished.

I hope that answered your question.

--Marc

[L.Adamson]

I suppose I'm more interested in advanced technology, that you don't often see in homebuilts. However, in numerous cases, the experimental market does the first look at some of the best new inventions.

However, I did find the articles regarding the Gulfstream biz jet set up, with a combination of infra-red cameras & computer 3D terrain data-base extremely interesting. The units work in conjunction with each other to provide a 3D picture on the MFD that's "real time" as well as the topographical data-base. In other words, the terrain must match!

And considering the fact, that "flight into terrain--- prevention" tops my list, aviation wise; I find these magazines of good value.

L.Adamson --- I generally like what the AOPA does for me and others.