Wow. You guys are all very well spirited when discussing this option. I can feel the passion even by just reading your comment. I hope I haven't just started a civil war with my curiosity. Thanks everyone.
So, yes thanks as well for the input Bill. Yes I do know aluminum doesn't rust, it corrodes. It's just a lazy way of me describing corrosion. My bad. Dang, the details that you guys pick on based on my comment is amazing and I mean it in the most sincere way.
So when I said, I got bored passed 200 rivets, I don't mean it literally. I just meant to say that I'm not good at doing repetitive stuffs. My brain is just wired differently and what ended up happening most of the time is that I ended up trying to find the more efficient way to do thing (AKA: Shortcut
). That's all. Not shortcut in a negative way like shortcut not doing things that I have to do but I didn't do just because I'm lazy. Well the lazy part is still there but that's what drives my brain to find a way to do things more efficiently. Anyway, enough of my soapbox.
Well thanks for all of the suggestions. Very good input indeed. Bob, to answer your question whether I'll be happier buying someone else's RV, I'd say big "NO" and that's part of the reason why I asked whether I should do QB or legacy. I may not be able to build it perfectly myself but I trust what I build better than someone else's. At least I know where the potential issue that I may have when I build it, where if it's someone else's built, god knows what's behind it. I'm not saying that they don't build it right. I just don't like catching surprises that I'd have known if I built it myself.
One example. I always thought that changing brake pads and brake rotors for car in general is a pain in the ***. Out of curiosity one day, I did try to change the brake pads for my car myself. Guess what I found out. Some other mechanic who replace my brake pads in the past (which I can't remember who) install the brake pads and forgotten to put a couple of the spring back to hold the brake pads. That could end up catastrophic to me, or not but that doesn't matter. So I forced myself to learn how to change the brake pads and all the rotors for all my cars since. Annoying, yes. Pain in the ***, absolutely. But at least I live with the satisfaction of knowing that it's being done correctly. I know plane is more complex than my **** brake pads but I hope you got my point.
I'm not saying that what Vans build for the RV-10 is troublesome. I'm just saying that if I built it myself, I'd have known all of those nooks and crannies down to the details and I don't have to second guess what other people did or didn't and be paranoid about it. My challenge just like everyone else is of course, "Time". I think of myself as "do it once, do it right, or don't do it" person. Not to a point of being a perfectionist but I still would like to get it done right. Especially for something like an airplane where if I screwed it up, it could kill me and my passengers. But just like anything else in life, there's a trade off. I travel a lot and not being able to touch the building process at least an hour a day will slow down the progression of the build. Plus the most important part, my family time. We all only have 24 hours a day. No matter how we slice it, it's still 24 hours/day. Something has to give. That's the $100 million dollars question, right?
BTW, thanks Kyle for the input on single garage. I agree with you. As much as airport hangar is a bigger space, having to go there to do the work everyday will slowly diminish it to become once a week, then once a month, then once a year. Then I got frustrated that the project never get completed. So I guess I'm converting my single car space to become my lab then.
I can always move the other 2 cars out of the other garage spaces if needed.
Sorry I digress. So from tools perspective, I'll say it'll cost the same for me whether I do 500 hours work or 2500 hours work, so there's no saving there. I still need to buy the **** tools. But I'll try your suggestion though Bill. Try the Empennage first since there's no QB for that and I have to build it no matter what. If I could manage my time to do it, I'll continue buying the rest of the pieces. I hear you all about buying the boring part such as wing. The issue is, after watching Jason's video on his journey to build the RV-10, there's something in the wing build that I know if Vans is the one who build it in QB, I'm not going to be happy. Again, I'm not saying that the quality is not good. It's just that there are a couple of things that I want to do that's different with the way Vans build it. Such as for example, adding a conduit in the wing instead of using the grommet for example. That has always been a preference of mine, even with my home. I've always complaint that the previous home builder didn't use enough conduit in my house and when it comes time to do some upgrade, man, it's such a pain in the ***. That's just one example. But back to the question, do I want to go through all the painful 1 rivet at a time? Hmmm
.
As you can tell, I'm still trying to decide whether I should just suck it up, build it the way I want it, learning everything and squeeze whatever time I have to work on the plane, or just say the **** with it, and buy the QB version.
Back on the engine discussion. Thanks for the input Dave. Here's my comparison. Lycoming IO-540 260 HP about 47.7k per engine as of today. Aeromomentum AM20T, as of a week ago, I got quoted for 18k. Dang, the difference. Lycoming TBO normally is around 2000 hours, right? With average cost for Lycoming TBO? Around 10k, give and take a couple hundreds. Aeromomentum, TBO is currently at 1500 hours and I was told when the TBO time has come, it'll probably cost less than 5k by replacing the long block and a couple of other parts and the engine is back to almost brand new with another 1500 hours. Of course I'd expect the value of the plane to be lower. That's a reasonable assumption cuz when you use a cheaper engine, you can't expect the plane to be sold at the same price like the RV-10 with Lycoming. Just the way it is and I have no beef with that. Plus knowing myself, if I spent this much time building the **** plane, I'll probably own it till I die. By then it's my kids' problem. LOL. Plus even if I assumed I fly say 200 hours a year, that'll still take me like 7 years before I have to TBO the engine which by then, a new type and more efficient engine is going to enter the market. So I'm not too worry about the company disappearing. It's an auto conversion and any car mechanic can fix it. The way I see it, that's the beauty of auto conversion.
FYI, the AM20T is still in a test stage and Mark said, it will hit the alpha stage by the end of this year I believe. Not that I'm in hurry anyway. I have tons of time to think.
Anyway, sorry for the long post. I thought the least I can do is to respond to all of you kind people who have been generous with your advise by taking your valuable time away from your busy day to day life activities to answer my annoying questions. Really appreciate the thought. I learn so much from y'all. So if this has not become a civil war, please do continue with the passionate conversation. I enjoy learning from many different perspectives. Have a wonderful weekend everyone and happy flying.