[Flyguytki]

Just out of curiosity when you are tracking your build hours do you calculate only your hours as the primary builder or do you add all your building partners hours into it?? I know it has no relevance to anything but just curious.
-david

 

[kevinh]

If you are a programmer type you can use a little tool I wrote: http://www.geeksville.com/plane/BuildLog/log-keeper.py

It reads comments form a csv file and pictures from a folder. If it finds a picture for any day, it assumes 2 hrs - but the csv file can override. This worked well for me, I just took photos as I built and occasionally added comments (or corrected times) after getting memory jogged by photos.

 

[Ironflight]

Just out of curiosity when you are tracking your build hours do you calculate only your hours as the primary builder or do you add all your building partners hours into it?? I know it has no relevance to anything but just curious.
-david

Since Louise and I are building the -3 together, we record all the "person hours". If we both spend three hours in the shop, we log it as six. I can't help it - I am an engineer.....

Paul

 

[WingsOnWheels]

I am doing my best to Not keep track of the hours. I really don't want to know how long this takes..haha

 

[DanH]

Keeping track of hours is a good way to waste a few.

 

[Sid Lambert]

With one exception I found that hours spent with a building partner should have been counted as negative hours. It's a lonely mans hobby while in the shop.

 

[cholladay]

I built and fly an 8 and I am currently building a 10. I do not track hours. I do take a lot of pictures with a time and date stamp. After I am done I build a photo album to serve as a construction log for myself and anyone else that cares.

 

[trib]

I spent almost all of the time building by myself, but chose not to track the hours as I soon figured out it was a waste of time.

I frequently see my good buddy Jeff Moreau at his hanger with 4 or 5 "helpers", getting far less done than if he were alone (I'll admit to having cost him a couple of hours myself ). If you added all of these man-hours, you'd probably be less efficient than even government work! Van would flare when you claimed 12,000 hrs to build an RV-8

 

[Auburntsts]

Another vote to blow off tracking hours. I tracked them carefully building my tailcone, but stopped entirely on my wings. Like others, I just take some photos and then spend some time during my daily commute (roughly once a month) to catch-up my build log.

 

[Rick6a]

I built and fly an 8 and I am currently building a 10. I do not track hours. I do take a lot of pictures.....build a photo album to serve as a construction log for myself and anyone else that cares.

One two separate occasions, photograph albums and a binder full of purchasing invoices were the only items of documentation I offered when visiting the STL FSDO to satisfy their bureaucratic interest in awarding me a Repairman's Certificate and on both occasions they displayed next to no interest in examining either one. An informal face to face discussion with the FAA employee will quickly determine if he or she is convinced you actually built the aircraft and the FAA could care less how many hours it took. Faithfully documenting the build hours is an exercise undertaken for your own personal amusement because nobody else really cares.

 

[N316RV]

Is there a requirement to record hours?

The purpose of the builder's log is to prove you built the plane to get the repairman's certificate, right? Would a hand full of pictures showing you doing construction through out the building phase not work?

Just curious.

Thanks
Alan Jackson
Hartselle, AL
RV-9A

 

[panhandler1956]

I like tracking mine

Sounds like I'm a minority here, but I like tracking my build hours and it does a number of positive things for my project:

1. It obviously documents my build for the FAA (ok so it's overkill)
2. It provides a nice record to the next owner - no I don't plan to sell it, but...
3. I use KitlogPro so friends and family see my progress on the internet which really motivates me to get out and pound rivets there since I have a number of folks following my build
4. Helps me to go back and see what I did at a later date for repair or troubleshooting years later
5. Since I push my construction logs onto the internet I don't have to host pictures on a separate sight, like Picasso, to display them on this forum.

I literally only spend :10 minutes a day doing this - you don't have to write War and Peace (I work on my plane daily).

My 2 cents...

 

[rv7boy]

...Faithfully documenting the build hours is an exercise undertaken for your own personal amusement because nobody else really cares.

...AMEN!!!

 

[gpiney]

After each Step

When I finish a building step, I write the date and amount of time next to the step I check off. At the end of each page I add it up. Takes little time and can't hurt.