I thought I would provide a brief history of how I got to where I am today, building a Vans Aircraft RV-10 kit aircraft.
I first heard about Oshkosh in 1995. I was in Florida visiting family and attended Sun-N-Fun. I made a plan to visit Oshkosh the following year, which I did, and became enamored with the prospect of building my own airplane.
Since those initial visits, I attended Oshkosh and Sun-n-Fun on an approximate semi-annual basis looking at everything from scratch built / plans built to kit built, from ultra-light to fixed wing and rotary. In the meantime I earned my pilot’s license in Canada as that was where I was living at the time.
Over the years I contemplated many designs including the Volksplane, Express 2000, Tango Aircraft (now RAI 6), RV-6A, RV-7A and a Revolution helicopter and RAF gyro. Eventually, in 2006, after moving to the LA area to work, I bought the RV-7A preview plans as I really wanted a cross country airplane, ideally 4 seater, but the options for 4 seats, cross-country were much more limited at that time.
Then Vans introduced the RV-10. At the time I was set on what has become the RAI 6 and was the Team Tango Foxtrot. I had not been in the RV-10 but had been in the Foxtrot and really liked the clean lines and performance. The problem for me with the Foxtrot was it was / is, essentially an all-up-front cost build. I couldn’t stage the expenditure or budget the time.
In the meantime, I “retired” in 2017 and moved to Tennessee in 2020. After starting a peach orchard and building a bard=n, half of which was to be converted to a workshop, I figured if I was ever going to build an airplane, I better start. So on my 67th birthday in October 2021 I finally bit the bullet and paid the deposit on the RV-10.
The empennage kit finally arrived in July of 2022. Apart from doing the inventory, the kit still sits in the crates while I complete the workshop prep., which will be my next entry. I’ll post some photos from way back, just to make this a little more interesting.
I really only had 2 criteria, a plane as a viable VFR cross country aircraft and 4 seats. As time has passed, I really don’t need 4 seats any longer, the family are all grown up and living their own lives. Ultimately though, I continued with the 4 seat requirement because I do have friends all over the country and in Canada, and the resale value, should that become desirable or necessary, seems to provide a better ROI than with a 2 seater.
So that is a brief history of how I came to be building an RV-10 kit aircraft. When I find the photos I will post some of my photos of Oshkosh 1995. They are around here somewhere 🙂
I am hoping I enjoy the build process because, as I told my wife, if I never get to fly the airplane I still want to build it. While I do want to fly it, I am building because I want to build. It’s intimidating, at times, but I am nearly ready to start…