Dumb Question : How are Building Hours Logged?

lacofdfireman · #1 09-29-2006, 06:27 PM

Ok I am new but must ask. I am sure it's a dumb question but I have to ask anyways. I here alot of people tell me that it took 800hrs or 2200hrs to build there kit and am wondering if this is all physical labor hrs or are the plans study hrs included. I heard one guy say that for every hr he spends on the plane he spends at least that studying the plans. Do you count that towards the building hrs?

videobobk · #2 09-29-2006, 06:51 PM

If this is the dumbest question you have, you aren't in bad shape! I would guess that this is pretty much a personal thing and a lot would depend on how much you want to fool yourself. I logged only those hours in the shop and didn't log clean up time as I figured the garage needed it anyway. When you have a flying airplane, everyone in the "been there, done that" club is going to know how much time you took--enough to finish a fine flying machine. I doubt if anyone, even the FAA, is going to question the details of how you logged it. If I had logged all the time I spent planning and dreaming in the past 2 1/2 years, I would have had to count almost every waking moment. Keep it fun.

Bob Kelly, taxi testing

jcoloccia · #3 09-29-2006, 06:57 PM

At the other end of the spectrum, I log exactly 0% of my time. I take lots of pictures and jot down brief notes. Building a plane'and registering it is hard enough without adding more paper work

YMMV

Jaypratt · #4 09-29-2006, 07:41 PM

I help people with their RV Kits here in RV Central, near Fort Worth, Texas.
Loging time is not what the DAR is looking for. He wants to know you have a good handle on your plane and how you built it.

lacofdfireman · #5 09-29-2006, 08:06 PM

I will explain why I asked the question. I have been researching building an RV7A quickbuild for along time. I always figured that Van's website which states Slow build time to be 2000-2200 hrs before prepunched holes were in them was about the average build time. He said with the prepunched kits take off about 400hrs. Then he said the QB kits are roughly half of that so I figured around 800-1000hrs would be the average of the QB kits. I have gone through 50 or more websites of builders that are saying the QB's are taking 1700plus hrs to complete. So I was wondering if these guys are counting plans reading time or are just going at a more meticulous pace? I am not planning on breaking any speed records with my 7A QB just curious as the the amount of physical hrs that will be involved. I know this would vary greatly from builder to builder with experience, work ethic etc, but what's your feeling on how long a QB should take realistically?

n468ac · #6 09-30-2006, 04:56 AM

I would say 4 to 5 years is the avg build time for a quick build.

Everyone has a life other than building ... if we didn't this forum wouldn't be so active with builders.

pierre smith · #7 09-30-2006, 05:40 AM

I see quite a few guys through here giving transition training and recently one man told me he'd been at it for 12 1/2 years but he really, really enjoyed the building process and each little item was an end in itself. He now has an immaculate 6A, just signed off for flight.

Personally, A friend and I built our QB 6A in 20 months, unpainted. Another fella took a leave of absence and built his in under 6 months! Some guys take 20 years but several years seems to be the norm.

Life throws all sorts of c r a p at you; divorce, moves, bankruptcies, whatever and they all influence the outcome.
Regards,

fixnflyguy · #8 09-30-2006, 05:44 AM

Unless you just want to know the final hours applied to the project,no record of time is "needed", however, I keep a good old aviation calendar on the wall in the shop that I write the approximate hours/part of the plane I spent each day I am in there on the day block of the calendar.Doesnt mean a hill of beans at the end of the project.....but it lets me know how many days I am not there as a reminder! I have a stack of calendars now...too many actually, but it is sort of a story book of the whole project.

Bill E. RV-4 sloooow build/90% done,90% to go.

cytoxin · #9 09-30-2006, 05:52 AM

i would have never started..could have done it in two the slow build route but then i got sick and took a year+ off. now my prioritys changed but i'll still finish before 5...really depends on your time availiable to spend on the project. and your present skills( which get sharp quickly). you should be able to do a quick build in a year to 18 months. once i got better i decided i wanted to spend time with my family more than i wanted a plane so that slowed down the build some. but i'll still finish under 5 I HOPE

some builders did it in two years of evenings and weekends slow build, no paint. but those are long hours for really excited people. i aint quite excited enough to stay out to 2 in the morning while my little honey is fast asleep and my child doesnt know my name. then theres hunting , camping, football games, flying the spam cans. man i could have beeeeen done. if you go in thinking
4-5 you not fail your expectations.

if you go in thinking well so and so did it in 1800 hrs i can to well then now your under the gun and that really soaks the fun out of it. i have a freind building a six he's been at it for 15 years his plane is older than his children (high schoolers) and is still at qb stage. it was a slow build no pre punch kit .

Rick6a · #10 09-30-2006, 06:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lacofdfireman

...........alot of people tell me that it took 800hrs or 2200hrs to build there kit and am wondering if this is all physical labor hrs or are the plans study hrs included. I heard one guy say that for every hr he spends on the plane he spends at least that studying the plans. Do you count that towards the building hrs?

I have to believe that estimated build hours are largely the product of the marketing folks. It is a way to give a potential builder some idea of the time investment involved. In reality, it is no more accurate than Van's nifty cost estimator. What do professional bean counters call it.....units of "erg?"

I can't count how many times I was stumped trying to figure out a given assembly process. Sometimes, I'd retreat to the living room easy chair and "watch" junk TV while trying to think things through. You may find that you'll go to bed at night mulling over a technical problem that left you dazed and confused, yet the answer might come upon you suddenly in a spazm of inspiration at 3:00 A.M. The brain might be working on the airplane, but the "touch labor" applied to actually building isn't. Is using a Microsoft Money program to organize and total and collate stacks of invoices and receipts and generating colorful bar graphs and pie charts to document the process count? IMV, it all counts. For those reasons among others, I never actually logged the "time to build." For me, its just too nebulous a concept to get my arms around. Why bother? The FAA or your DAR doesn't care. You've got enough to think about. Some of the best advice you will ever hear....BUILD ON!