I got back from Oshkosh this weekend and was relieved to find it to be a rather uneventful return trip, unlike last time. It was pretty nice weather, overall, but when I landed in Algona, IA, I did notice that there was some weather across most of Nebraska, and planned to travel north of it. I was getting tailwinds, which I know threatens the credibility of this writing since I was traveling westward and having tailwinds in that direction is pretty rare. I had them going to Oshkosh too. OK, I know my credibility is shot because getting tailwinds in both direction on a single trip pushes the limits of believability.

There were a number of interesting things to see and do at Oshkosh, and I’ll see if I can find some YouTube videos to give you a better sense of what it was like. To start off, here is one of the new Eclipse Concept Jet, which looks remarkably like the V-Jet that was the genesis for their first plane, the Eclipse 500, which morphed into a more conventional-looking aircraft as it got closer to production.

I’ll be heading to Oshkosh for Airventure tomorrow. I won’t have email access for about a week, so if you need me, you can contact me on my cell phone at 970-978-6188.

I got a call today from one of my cousins who was born in Ireland and immigrated to the United States. He had heard the news of my recent ‘retirement’ and was calling for confirmation. That could only mean one thing. One of my relatives is reading this blog. Why, I had no idea!

-Lee

This week I got a few emails from people asking me about a LongEZ that is for sale in Loveland and is listed in Trade-A-Plane. It just so happens that I know the owner, since I purchased an engine from him a few months ago and wrote up the experience in my blog. I did not know his airplane because I had never seen it close up. I’d seen it from a distance, and while purchasing the engine we had some discussions about it, but I had never seen it up close so I couldn’t comment on it. Yesterday I arranged to meet with him at his hangar so I could assess it for the people who had emailed me.

Buying a used homebuilt, that is, an experimental aircraft, is not for the faint-of-heart. Even the most beautiful specimens may contain fatal flaws, as was the case with the LongEZ that John Denver purchased. That LongEZ sold for the highest price I’d ever seen paid for a LongEZ at the time, around $55K and that was in 1996. From what I understand, the plane was quite stunning in appearance, and appearance more than any factor, seems to drive the price of a homebuilt airplane, particularly if it is in ‘showplane’ condition. However, in that aircraft’s case, the fuel valve was installed in such a way that the ergonomics were absolutely terrible. Ironically, the decision to make this modification was presumably to enhance the safety of the fuel valve, but it created several other more serious problems in the process, namely, that the pilot had to turn around to use it and that the direction of the valve stem with respect to the selected tank was counter-intuitive. In addition, it used a valve that had long been known for its tendency to gall and stick and it was at the end of a long torque tube, which greatly exacerbated the sticking problem. While fiddling with this valve after having run a tank dry and the engine stop, John Denver became so distracted that he crashed the airplane (full accident report here). It was completely unnecessary because an engine outage is no reason to crash vertically into the ground, or, in his case, into the water, at nearly a vertical angle. When the engine stops, the plane is effectively a glider which can be landed in a gentle manner on a level surface like water without killing the plane’s occupants.

Each homebuilt aircraft is unique. Some production planes tend to become more unique over time as their instrument panels tend to take on a life of their own as they get ‘upgraded’ over many decades with a whole host of oddities. However, in the case of a homebuilt plane, the ability to customize knows no limits and so you can’t just purchase one without examining it carefully to know how everything is arranged.

When building an airplane, deviating from the plans must be done with some degree of caution. For example, if one person makes a modification and calls it an improvement, it’s not a good idea to follow suit until you know of several dozen who were able to repeat this modification with similar results. If it’s truly an improvement, then many of the builders will eventually adopt it and it will add to the value of the aircraft once it’s universally recognized as an improvement to the design. In the case of a LongEZ, the improvements that are generally considered improvements over the original plans include the Roncz canard, larger rudders, heavy duty brakes, brake cylinders installed in the nose, and an O-320 engine. Each of those will enhance the value of the plane.

If you really want to diminish the plane’s value, you can install an automotive engine, and you’d be lucky to get any money over the cost of the airframe when you sell it, which generally accounts for about 60% of the typical value of a similar airplane with an aircraft engine. In other words, about 40% of the value of an aircraft is in the engine, but only if it has an aircraft engine. Even though automotive engines are cheaper to purchase and maintain, it will require a fair amount of time to adapt it to an airframe. For some homebuilders, the challenge of using an auto engine is its own reward. Having an automotive engine decrease of the aircraft’s value may not be fair, but it is a testament to the uncertainty factor of having an unknown, unique engine in a plane and not having a statistically significant sample of other similarly equipped aircraft. It really makes the airplane earn its ‘experimental’ moniker.

In the case of the plane I examined, I found it to be a solidly built plane, with over 450 hours on the airframe and good workmanship throughout as well as some nice upgrades. There were some areas that need to be further upgraded or repaired, but overall it looked like a pretty good deal to me.

It’s important to have someone with experience in the type of aircraft you’re considering to look it over before committing to purchase it because there are many potential pitfalls in buying a used homebuilt. Builders often can be overly fond of their creations and are not impartial judges when describing them so you need to get an independent assessment. In many ways, an aircraft one builds is like a child, and it’s hard to judge one’s own child impartially.

When I was in looking for a LongEZ nearly 20 years ago, I talked with some people who had the ugliest planes I’ve ever seen try to tell me that they were in ‘showplane’ condition. It really made an impression on me that you should never buy something without seeing it first. And you should definitely bring someone along who will talk you out of it when you’re in the mode of thinking that some material possession is the ‘one thing separating you from true and everlasting happiness’.

One of the biggest expenses of building a plane is the engine. Typically, this can account for up to one third of the cost, especially when you factor in the accessories like the starter, ignition, and fuel injection system. A rebuilt or new aircraft engine can cost between $20,000 to $40,000 depending on where you purchase it. If you can get a ‘run-out’ engine just about ready to be rebuilt, and the main components such as the crankshaft and case are in good condition, you can save about half the cost by just replacing items that wear out such as the cylinders, rings, and bearings.

A few months ago I was reading my email and noticed that someone from a local EAA chapter was interested in selling a Lycoming IO-360 that he was no longer going to use for a kit plane he had decided to sell. I emailed him immediately and told him I’d be interested in the engine because I am getting to the point where I want to start mounting my cowlings on the plane and you really can’t do that until you know which model of engine you’re going to use. In this case, the engine came out of a Mooney and had sat for the past 10 years awaiting a time when it made sense to rebuild it. The price was reasonable for an angle-valve IO-360 which, despite having 20 extra horsepower (200 HP vs. 180 HP), is not as sought-after as the straight-valve models which tend to be about 40 lbs lighter. Of course, I intend to lighten the engine with a lightweight starter, alternator and ignition. The IO-360A1B6D has an odd arrangement of magnetos, using a single shaft to drive a pair of magnetos mounted in a housing, unlike the more common arrangement of one on each side of the engine. This might be a deterrent for some people, but I’m planning on running dual electronic ignitions with a backup electrical system, so it’s not as much of a concern for me as it might be for someone else.

My biggest concern in buying a used engine was that it had a prop strike that was not recorded in the logbook. This would not be the first time a damaged engine was quietly removed and sold to a broker and passed through enough hands that all hope of finding out the origin of the engine is lost. A prop strike generally ruins the crankshaft, the single most expensive part of the engine. But this engine had a logbook with it, along with a tail number of the plane from which it had been removed. So I tracked down the plane in the government database and called the owner and asked if there ever was a prop strike that he knew about because if a gear had collapsed and caused a prop strike, that event would have likely made it into the logbook of the aircraft, even if it was missing from the logbook of the engine. In talking with the owner, he told me that the previous owner decided to go with a factory new engine because he felt it would more than pay for itself with the increased resale value of the airplane. I had to agree with that logic because it also allowed him to get the more convention arrangement of magnetos, which also increases the perceived value of the plane. So the engine logbook history appeared to be legitimate.

I decided to buy the engine. One of the advantages of getting a local engine is that you don’t have to worry about how to get it shipped across the country which on a 300 lb engine that is quite bulky can get very expensive.

The next step was to figure out how to move it to my hangar. I figured it would fit in my Durango, but I didn’t know where I could borrow an engine hoist to lift it and put it in and then remove it when I got it to my hangar. I looked through Harbor Freight’s website and found that they had a lift that was very reasonably priced that appeared to fold up and come apart quite easily. That was important to me because I knew I’d have to put it in the back of the Durango along with the engine. As you can see from the photo, the engine fit nicely into the Durango. That SUV has now transported every large part of the plane to the hangar, including the fuselage, wings, canard, canopy, turtleck and engine. I worried when I sold my truck that I’d really miss it, but the versatility of the Durango continues to impress me.

Here’s the engine sitting in the hangar. The next step is to get the engine mount so that it can be fitted to the firewall and then the cowlings fit around it. I will have some surgery to do on the cowlings because this engine has tuned intake manifolds and they take up more space than ordinary intakes and are largely responsible for that extra 20 HP.