And Furthermore...!
Mike,
I'd like to expand on my answer a little, now that I have more time to type.
The three most important words in homebuilding, and the ones that everyone should have painted above their garage door, are, "Education And Recreation." Read the FARs which allow us the amazing latitude that we have to build airplanes in our own shops. You'll see those three words. They are the basis for the homebuilt movement; that the FAA allows us to do what we do, as long as it is for our own "Education And Recreation." The paperwork that you submit to the FAA to get your homebuilt plane licensed contains a form which you sign, which certifies this. You must place and sign an entry into your aircraft logbook which reads (a quote, not a paraphrase) "I certify that I have manufactured this airplane for my own education and recreation, signed Builder."
Now it is true that you can legally build an airplane in your garage. You can sign all the above documents and get your plane licensed. You can then test fly it, and immediately have a change of heart and decide to sell it. You could then take some of the proceeds of that sale, buy another kit, and repeat the process. This sort of thing does go on. There are no shortage of people, many on this very forum, who will defend such a practice as complying with the letter of the law. The rationalizations and tortured logic that they use to support their position are just that, rationalizations.
The problem with that scenario is that, while you (arguably) are complying with the letter of the law, you are certainly not in compliance with the spirit of the law. Building an airplane for your own education and recreation, and assmbling aircraft with the intent to resell them at a profit, are mutually exclusive. When you are doing this, you are now manufacturing airplanes for resale, without complying with the federal laws which govern the manufacture of airplanes for resale. And those regulations are numerous and burdensome, just ask Cessna.
So what? What's the big deal? Glad you asked. As others have mentioned, the homebuilt movement is one of the very few areas of aviation (or life for that matter) which is not governement-regulated to death. As long as we are only building airplanes for ourselves to fly around in for fun, the gubmint looks the other way. But, when we start to pretend that we are Cessna or Cirrus and start building airplanes for resale, suddenly we are now not just risking ourselves, but the unsuspecting buyers of our products. And when we begin to risk others, that's when the government steps in.
Which brings us to the Epic story. For those that don't remember, Epic Aircraft is the outfit which makes the 6 place, composite, turboprop, 300 knot "homebuilt" which was introduced last year. Their idea of a homebuilt was to come to their factory, have a cup of coffee, stir a cup of epoxy, write a very big check and sit back and wait for their employees to build your airplane. Well, a wealthy individual did just that. When it came time to register and inspect the homebuilt, the FAA balked at the idea that this person, who no doubt didn't know the first thing about the construction of the plane, could have met the requirements of an amatuer builder (the 51% rule.) And, they refused to license the airplane. So, the wealthy but hapless customer had a $1 million hunk of fiberglass in the shape of an airplane.
Now, the FAA and Epic eventually worked it out, and as a result the FAA now gives greater scrutiny to certain very high end homebuilts like the Epic.
So what? Well, this type of thing was not unique to Epic. There are places around the country where, right now, you could call up and order up a custom built RV over the phone, and never lift a finger other than to write the check, very similar to Epic. It's just much easier to get away with it on an RV-4 than an Epic. Epic just pushed the line to far and got caught. Now, when the government reacts to something, they very often over-react. The consequences of an over-reaction to the Epic situation could well have had dire consequences for the homebuilt movement as we know it. Fortunately cooler heads prevailed, but that was not a sure thing at the time. And that is why I believe that we dodged a large bullet with the Epic situation. And, it is why I take a very dim view of people who push the envelope with respect to the rules which allow us to be homebuilders.
Wow, that got long winded. I don't know how George does this all day long. This is one topic that I am passionate about, so I tend to go on and on. Hopefully this will give you a little insight into where I'm coming from.
CJ
