College Student Wanting to Build

[phillip.proctor]

Hello All,

My name is Phil and I am a student at Utah State University in their aviation maintenance management program. A friend of mine provided me with a Mustang Aero Midget Mustang (minus the engine) that he and his father built. An A&P somehow crash it just a few yards off the runway and it has minor wing rib and nacelle damage.

Our school has an old RV-6 kit sitting around and I got approval from my instructor to start wrenching on it. The rudder and elevators have been completed and the two wings are near completion. I have 3 sets of mix matched plans that were lying around and am basically wanting to work on this plane before moving on to my Midget so that I can get some experience and make the mistakes on someone else's plane.

I am not currently a pilot but want to in the next 3-5 years. My school offers a summer program for $7,500 to get your private in glass cockpit DA-40's. I am thinking that is a good deal and would get me some good experience. I want to go as far as IFR rating for insurance/experience purposes. If any of you can pass some help my way on where to start on either of these two kits I can work on that would be awesome. I am only in my second semester of the maintenance program so I don't know a ton yet. Thanks. Phil

[Mike S]

Originally Posted by phillip.proctor

Hello All, My name is Phil

Hello Phil, and welcome aboard the good ship VAF.

It is really good to see another young member here, thanks for checking in.

What are the chances you could get ownership of the RV6, maybe trade the MM for it???

I think you would be way ahead with the RV vs. the MM.

Have you ever gotten a ride in an RV???

[phillip.proctor]

Yeah, my buddy, Jeff Mabbutt, has an RV-4 that his dad built. We've gone up in it and I like it quite a bit. The thing is that the Midget wouldn't take much to complete and I kinda want to keep doing this for years to come so hope to get a midget and an RV and other kits in the future. Never built before so trying to get my feet wet and with one kit with no plans and another with 3 random sets of plans I would hope that I could get somewhere with it. I love this stuff there is just a nice steep learning curve.

[Snowflake]

I second the suggestion of trading the Midget Mustang for the RV. I would love to own a Midget Mustang to fly around, it would be a lot of fun. But it's single seat, which means I can't share that fun. So it could never be my first airplane.

Also, as you don't have a license, you're going to find it extremely painful to keep looking at that "almost ready" Midget Mustang sitting there until you get your license, and then even when it's finished it would be unwise for that to be your first plane. It's very short coupled, and you won't have an instructor with you to check you out.

A much better idea would be to finish the -6 (you won't make any mistakes you can't fix, after all, you're in the Aviation Maintenance program, right?), and then learn to fly in it. That won't be as easy as learning in a Cessna, but I doubt it would be significantly harder either. What it will be, is a *lot* more fun than learning in a Cessna.

Just my $0.02.