is this crazy?

[Plane krazy]

I am building a -10 i curently have a -7

my emp kit tail cone is almost done i have been going slow at this and enjoying the building process

the problem is with the ways things are it is much harder to find all the money to buy the next kits and when you do get the kits many of the parts you get will hang around the shop for some time before you need them in my case i already know that this will be a very slow build

Does it make any sense to buy some of the fuse parts and buy/build as i need a $14 k fuse kit can be broken down into several more afforable peices and as i need them

Would it cost more this way ????

A few years ago a -6 landed long on a short runway and wipedout his right wing no fuse damage pilot ok ,he asked me to fix it( he was not the builder) i bought the plans and orded the parts for the wing one by one

if you added the cost of the parts for a complete wing including spar and compared it to a 6 wing kit and cut in in half it was still cheaper for me to buy the parts one by one

ken

 

[Auburntsts]

You could, but you'll end up paying more in shipping that way. Plus I think you'll have to rely on someone to give you a copy of the plans as I don't think you can order them separately (dont' know this for sure). I'm sort of in the same boat as I don't have the cash to buy the wing kit but I'm mostly done with my empacone, so I'm very interested to hear what you fianlly decide to do. Right now, what I've decided is since I was not in a rush to begin with, is to bite the bullet and save until I have the money. In the mean-time, I've started working on my fairings and learning the ways of fiberglass.

 

[Plane krazy]

I got a freight quote from vans to maine for the -10 fuse kit it was high don't remember exact number like $900.00

I can order lots of smaller boxes for that much money i already know that this 10 will be a 10 year project

I don't want the wings at this time i can order the center section for about $1200 which will be discounted from the wing kit, once the wings are built they just hang around

I finished a -9A for a guy a few years ago his wings had been in storage for a while and we had a hard time getting the mice out of them they made a mess

my idea is to build the fuse and even the finish kit or parts of then deal with the wings

we must keep building with the ways the economy is right know money is harder to get for most people if we just wait our building skills fail and projects get sold or other

Vans could to help us make smaller kits more bite size

ken in maine

 

[rleffler]

I got a freight quote from vans to maine for the -10 fuse kit it was high don't remember exact number like $900.00

I can order lots of smaller boxes for that much money i already know that this 10 will be a 10 year project

ken in maine

That's a bad assumption.......

It really depends on how you bundle the parts. Because of the size of the skins, spar, rear spar, flaps, etc. all require long crates to be shipped. The cost of the crates and the shipping will eat you alive.

I had to replace a leading edge skin. The crating and shipping was more than the part cost. I seem to recall that shipping on the one skin was about $100 and crating was another $20-$30..

You clearly save money with freight the more you ship in one load.

You can save some money by shipping via Partain if you are not in a rush to get anything. However, that doesn't solve the problem with handling the initial cost of the kit. I an saving about $350 over what I was quoted from Van's for ABF.

You can break things into smaller chunks to better fit your available funds, but your total costs could easily rise significantly due to freight and crating fees. It comes down to which variables do you want to control.

 

[Auburntsts]

Also, I wouldn't worry to much about losing your building skills--they aren't that perishable IMO. I had to stop for building almost a year right in the middle of building my elevators (deployed to Iraq) and picked where I left off little very little effort. I wasn't as fast initially, but it was the proverbial riding the bike analogy.

Hey, in the end, do what ever works for you -- there's no right or wrong here.