|
| I know a number of people who are not engineers who have built their own
| planes, both from kits & home built. They have them inspected along the
| way and before they fly and every one has worked out OK. I know a
| number of
| people who have built towers for themselves and they are all
| still with us.
Then they are excellent test pilots. Every single homemade aircraft is a
one-off, unique airplane. Nothing is standard (ask John Denver). The
owner/pilot is the test pilot - on every single flight. The level of risk
is substantially higher with such aircraft than with fully-certificated
aircraft. That is why the word EXPERIMENTAL is plastered all over it.
With kitplane aircraft you can get composite-material, high performing
machines via homebuilt that you literally cannot get commercially built.
So, there's some justification aside from the "fun" of building. You're
getting something that in many cases cannot be found at any cost, prebuilt.
But, you better have one helluva liability policy.
A tower is different. If we're talking more than the old A-frame 2x4 stuff,
with the price of wood today, metal is cheaper, lighter and stronger. The
cost of a few sections of Rohn 25 for that tribander can't be touched by a
homebrew version. Nor can the piece of mind.
73/Gary W2CS/N2200Y
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