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It's not too bad... the painted version seems a bit chubbier, and he's not smiling, but... Same artist did a really good job depicting one of our EAA Chapter members, Colonel Joe Jackson: Ron Wanttaja

There's reaction time to consider, too. With the airplane on base leg, there's limited time to note and react to a failure like this. Might be that by the time the pilot recognized the problem and formulated potential recoveries, the plane was too far into the event and too low to recover...

Exactly. The pilots of the homebuilts in my analysis have about three times the flight experience as the pilots of the Control Group. Again, "Pilot Miscontrol", in my analysis, refers to basic stick-and-rudder errors. It includes both loss of control as well as undershoot/overshoots, failure...

If you're from the Northwest, you know what the grey circle on the right side of this sectional means... :) Ron Wanttaja

Don't have overall figures for production-type aircraft, but I have it for some models. For the 172, it's 0.2% builder error, 2.2% maintenance error. I use the Cessna 172 and Cessna 210 as a "Control Group" to compare accident causes with homebuilts. It gives a mix of simple and complex...

The NTSB's "Amateur Built" flag is inaccurate. The NTSB investigators tend to use it to indicate Special airworthiness, rather than just Experimental Amateur Built. When I analyze a year's accidents, I do an initial sort on the "Amateur-Built" flag (labeled "Homebuilt" in the downloadable...

This particular RV-12 was licensed in category 48B; Experimental Light Sport - Kit Built. It is, of course, similar to EAB in that an amateur is constructing the aircraft. The difference is that the kit itself may be developed to a greater extent than one can get with an Experimental...

'Cept this wasn't an EAB.... Ron Wanttaja

...the need to giggle a lot. My home airport has been painting murals on the ends of the hangar rows. Honorees include an astronaut, a Medal of Honor awardee, a famous aviation historian. This mural was added this week: I'm told it was privately funded.... Ron Wanttaja

On Saturday, I was contacted by a local TV station, who interviewed me later that day. Be advised that they undoubtedly found me via this thread on POA. Keep that in mind when you participate in threads here. Ron Wanttaja

I read the thread title in a hurry, and thought he was referring to a woman... "May Ethan Zuckerman." Thought the OP was DG, for a moment.....:-) Ron Wanttaja

Let's not forget the "Cut Splice," which used to have an "n" in its name. Ron Wanttaja

Fly Baby, Pietenpol, Thorp T-18, Stits Playboy/Playmate, and any number of other older plans-built designs. Some of the more modern designs might be a possibility, depending on when in the mid-70s one is talking about...Bede BD-4 and BD-5, Varieze and Variviggen, even the RV-3. I took a look...

Had a similar problem last September. Turned out to be the antenna. Not sure what happened, it's possible some part of the shoulder harness was making contact with it (yes, it's inside the fuselage). Fortunately, the airplane had an older, unused antenna with a connector in a coax that runs...

Don't have statistics for the overall fleet, but have looked at the Cessna 172. Its overall rate of loss-of-power accidents is about half that of homebuilts. Major factor is that non-certified engines are involved in almost half of the homebuilt accidents. For the 172s, about 25% of the...

Try this link. http://www.bowersflybaby.com/tech/spark2.html Ron Wanttaja

You found the listing in Part 21 that includes the definition of each, but the "Kit Built" category is not the usual "homebuilt kit." At one point, manufacturers such as Piper produced "Kit" versions of their products, which could be assembled by customers but had a lot more stringent checking...

Here's a diagram showing all the certification categories in the US: You can see the nine categories under "Experimental"; obviously, manufacturers or commercial modifiers can take advantage of the Experimental Show Compliance with Regulations or Experimental R&D ones. Ron Wanttaja

If you have a legitimate reason, you can get approval to place the aircraft in the Experimental Research and Development category, Experimental Market Survey category, etc. If you have a good story, you can get approval to place the aircraft in the Experimental Exhibition category. None of the...

Yeah, but: There are more causes to a loss of engine power than mechanical failure of the engine. Ron Wanttaja