From the Experimental/Amateur-Built category’s emergence in 1947 through the founding of the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) in 1953, the classification grew slowly—in part because building on your own meant doing everything: welding, working with fabric, painting, upholstering, wiring, and plumbing. Once you’d found all the raw materials you needed, of course.

It wasn’t until the 1970s that the idea of “kit” airplanes became a serious thing. Frank Christensen is often credited for kick-starting the industry as we know it, providing builders of his Christen Eagle virtually everything they needed to build the airframe. All carefully packaged. All accounted for and tested to work with his airplane. No more cut-and-try, no more scrounging for a set of brakes that might work—or only work with serious modification. For a large part of that project, the parts fit together, turning what had often been a lot of hand fabrication into much more of an assembly process. Then came Burt Rutan and his moldless-fiberglass machines, first the VariEze and then the Long-EZ—to be followed by dozens of similar airplanes that promised greatly reduced build times alongside their impressive performance credentials.

• READ MORE: Ultimate Issue: Are You the One for That First Flight?

By the 1980s, the speed race was on, with Glasair and Lancair battling it out to make the fastest sport airplanes available. They hewed to a simple idea: Put as much horsepower into as small an airframe as you could get away with. Impressive top speeds came, but the real impact was actually behind the scenes. As the designs got faster, they had to become much stronger. Early homebuilts pulled from a rich tapestry of Piper Cub-like airplanes (along with the Cub itself, naturally), where speeds were necessarily low, aerodynamics comparatively forgiving, and the horsepower count was mostly what you could afford.

When the engineering requirements increased for the “average” homebuilt, so did expectations of what the kit would encompass. Early designs anticipated that you’d be able to weld your own fuselage tubes, engine mount, and exhaust system, for example.

From the late 1970s and into the next two decades, builder expectations changed radically. Every new kit was designed to be easier to build, either because the design itself was simpler, or because more of the tedious work had been done at the factory. In time, every flight-critical component would come to be built by professionals, either at the factory proper or by trusted subcontractors. They, as pros, used the right tooling and had the expertise to ensure that the parts were accurately built, typically to a much higher standard than the typical builder could muster.

• READ MORE: Latest CubCrafters Design Looks Back and Ahead

Which brings us to the opening question: Why aren’t there new kit companies popping up left and right, like we had in the latter part of the ’70s and through the ’80s? It’s a simple question with a multipart answer.

Let’s start with builder expectations. For the last three decades, experimental aviation has been in its maturity phase. The best-run and -funded companies chose to incrementally develop their products while working to build better factories. Investment in new tooling technologies, including CNC (computer numerically controlled) machining and, especially, punch-press machines, helped drive almost unseen development. If you look at, say, an early Van’s RV-6 and then consider a recent-build RV-7, you might conclude they’re very similar airplanes.

They’re not. The early RV-6 required a lot more fabrication by the builder and had, by modern standards, fewer semi-finished components. Meaning, the builder was responsible for a great deal of both assembly and alignment because of the need to locate parts relative to one another and drill holes in exactly the right place. Moving on to the current version, which uses something called matched-hole construction, the job gets significantly easier because the parts become self-aligning. Each mating part has the rivet holes placed in such a way that they only go together one way. You’re either way off or right on.

Even with that, though, the earlier versions required the builder to partially assemble large parts of the airplane, drill those locating holes to final size, then disassemble to remove burrs from the drilling process, primer between skins, and commit a few other steps before the parts could be reassembled and then riveted. Today’s technology involves the factory making those holes to final size, meaning that no further drilling operations are required. Assemble the pieces, make sure the surfaces align properly and there are no burrs or defects with the holes, then begin riveting. Removing builder steps helps cut the assembly time and reduces the chances of a mistake. And while it’s true the factory can make mistakes, it’s far more likely any “oops” will come from the builder’s hand.

These time-saving steps cost money for the builder but especially for the company. And they’re really not optional in today’s kit world. Builders expect a high level of completion and that every effort be made to reduce  both build time and the chances for builder error.

I asked this question of a handful of kit companies: Let’s say a tornado came through on a weekend and leveled your plant, what would it take to start again? The answer: between $5 million and $15 million. And that’s assuming you have your design and other intellectual properties already in place. Start the whole effort from zero? Perhaps double, according to my sources.

There’s more keeping this industry in the mature phase than pure economics. In the early days, there was a lot more tolerance for building one-offs and taking risks with startup companies. But those heady days were punctuated by a few marginal companies taking deposits and going under before all the kits or aircraft components were delivered. Some of these companies, trying to elbow their way to the front, found themselves unable to commit the kind of arduous, expensive development process all really good airplanes require. Not that they were dangerous, necessarily, but in many cases the last few clicks of refinement didn’t happen, at least not right away.

As a result, builders became more conservative over time, favoring the established companies that seemed to perform the development work and proved to have the financial grounding to continue producing kit components in a reasonable amount of time. They were also trending toward being followers rather than pioneers, in the sense that choosing a popular make and model gave them a built-in support group at the airport. That’s how the most popular brands became the default choice, making it harder for new entrants to gain a foothold.

• READ MORE: Van’s Aircraft Announces Recovery Plan

Cost is also a factor. Established companies have the advantage of amortizing the cost of the factory, which puts less of a burden on today’s kit prices. In fact, most kits have gone up in price mainly due to increases in the cost of raw materials. And that’s before you look at powerplant and avionics price increases. The kit market has always been price sensitive, so a company that has a stable product line with moderate costs, plenty of happy builders, support groups, and numerous flying examples has an unfair advantage over the newcomers.

But change is coming with the expansion of 3D printing and other new manufacturing techniques. Not that airplanes will, in the near future, be 3D-printed appliances, but that the technology allows for faster prototyping and the possibility of better, more accurate, more easily changeable molds for composite aircraft. (Traditional molds are intensely time consuming to create, which is why companies try to get the most out of them by not changing or updating models any more often than they have to.) And we’re not even considering the possibility of electric aircraft or other powerplant alternatives.

We may look back on this period of homebuilt aircraft as a decades-long time of stability and conventionality, but it’s not for a lack of imagination or wonder. Today’s Experimentals are the product of mature, relatively conservative companies providing the market precisely what it wants.

Tomorrow? Good question.

This feature first appeared in the Summer 2024 Ultimate Issue print edition.

The post Ultimate Issue: It’s Time to Air Out the Kit Question appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

Once there it gathered more parts as though magnetized and consumed money like, well, a suddenly well-paid merchant marine on extended shore leave. You embraced one and tolerated the other. In time, the list of to-be-completed tasks shrank, and the possibility of it actually flying came into view, almost mirage-like.

The path from having a huge pile of airplane-kit components in the driveway to a flying example has complications beyond the construction process, all of which you learn as you go—with help from KITPLANES, naturally. But the ultimate goal for most is to have a flying airplane. (Truly, for some, the journey is the driver, not the goal.) And it’s the step from an assemblage of airplane-looking parts to an actual flying machine that is unique to homebuilding.

• READ MORE: Latest CubCrafters Design Looks Back and Ahead

Every Cessna you’ve flown has had a professional test pilot commit its first hour or more of flight. For your homebuilt, the task is on your shoulders. Probably.

The question, of course, is: Should you? It depends. How experienced are you overall? How many different aircraft types have you flown? What is your experience level in airplanes the same or very similar to your project? How recent is your flight experience? These are all fixable things, meaning if you have spent most of your budget on the build, it becomes smart, as you get near the end of the project, to start investing in flying time.

Begin with whatever you’re most comfortable with or what is locally available. At this getting-back-to-it stage, it is less important to be in an airplane similar to your homebuilt than it is just to get the stick or yoke time. Find an instructor who will not let you fly sloppy and who will keep you honest. Also, don’t fool yourself into thinking that an hour or two of dual instruction after years away from the flight deck will do it. You need to get well and truly current and, more importantly, proficient.

Then it’s time to consider training in airplanes similar to yours. The average homebuilt has more power for any given gross weight. Consider that the Van’s RV-7A typically has as much installed power as a Piper Archer, yet is 750 pounds lighter. It also has less wing area but, more important, far lighter controls. While the RV series in general has predictable stall characteristics, they are not as “mushy” as your common four-seat family airplane. Training only in the Piper will not prepare you for the RV.

For some of the most popular brands, again we’re talking Van’s RV series, transition training is available, which is highly desirable. In fact, many insurance companies effectively demand it for the first flights. If training is available in your make/model of homebuilt, find the money and do it. There is nothing better than recent experience in an airplane likely to be very similar to the one you just built.

• READ MORE: This 2022 Van’s RV-14 Is a Homebuilt, Cross-Country ‘AircraftForSale’ Top Pick

How important is this training? Accident statistics around homebuilt first flights illustrate the need. About a third of all reportable accidents during first flights fall into the broad category of “pilot miscontrol”  or improper handling of the airplane. Nothing in the airplane broke or caused the accident; it was pilot error.

Of those mishaps, the greatest single category involves stalls, followed by a bad flare or bounced landing, followed by misjudged approaches and loss of control during landing. Sometimes misrigging can make an airplane touchy near the lower end of the speed range, but more often than not, it’s just flown with inadequate margin. In the first few hours, you really don’t know what you don’t know.

Just because you feel ready doesn’t mean the airplane is. In the past, Experimental/Amateur-Built aircraft were required to have something called pre-cover inspections, basically a partway check by a designated airworthiness representative (DAR) or inspector to help ensure you’re doing a good job. That’s no longer required, but you do need to have a DAR or an FAA representative inspect the airplane prior to first flight.

More often than not, this is a spot check of critical systems—flight controls, in particular—and a thorough review of the paperwork to support that you did build the airplane and that you’ve completed all the forms. It is not necessarily a guarantee of airworthiness. That’s up to you as the manufacturer.

What most builders do today is host a last-look party. Invite other builders around for an afternoon poring over your airplane. Best are those who have built and are flying the same type you have, but those with keen eyes and a mechanical bent are also helpful. Open up the airplane, stand back, and let them find stuff. Stow your ego. They will find things wrong—missing cotter pins or rivets, wires rubbing, bolts not properly secured, all kinds of things. Fix every single defect they find before you fly.

Why is this so important? Because it can prevent problems. In a recent survey of first-flight accidents, 20 percent were attributable to builder error—most often mistakes building or configuring the fuel system (22 percent of the total builder-error accidents) with problems involving the carburetor, propeller or rotor, and airframe each accounting for 18 percent of the accidents.

• READ MORE: Buying a Van’s RV-4 Is an Experimental Adventure

Some of these accidents begin when builders try new ways to do things—as in the fuel-system design, for example—but sometimes it’s just poor execution of common and well-understood systems. A core truth in homebuilding is that the closer you stay to the plans—meaning that you’re building an airplane as much like the factory’s efforts as you can—the happier you’ll be in the long run. Every divergence from plans is a place where you lose the fleet experience and the engineering savvy others have gained for you, sometimes at the expense of other accidents.

In the not-too-distant past, builders who planned to perform first flights (as well as the rest of the flight-test program, defined as Phase I flight test by the FAA) could piece together elements of a good program, but it wasn’t ready made for them. It is now, thanks to the EAA’s Flight Test Manual and the accompanying Flight Test Cards. The manual provides step-by-step instructions on how to commit the most common portions of Phase I flight test, including the first flight, so there’s no need to freelance the materials.

Moreover, the test cards make each flight into bite-sized missions that focus on specific aspects of airplane control and performance. The concept is to commit the flight, note the results on the cards, and then continue only when the test is completed successfully.

In fact, the flight test cards underpin a new program in the Experimental world called task-based flight testing. Before this idea, all homebuilts were subject to a Phase I flight test based on hours flown, most commonly 40, but sometimes as few as 25 when the engine and propeller combination was a certified duo. Experimental LSA are the exception. But for the most common homebuilts, the new task-based system allows builders to complete Phase I once all the tests are complete.

Most of us have found that the last few hours of Phase I was a matter of trundling around, burning time. It’s too early to tell if Phase I hours are really reduced, but some have completed all the tests in 30 hours or less.

The last question is a hard one: Are you willing to treat your airplane like the machine that it is? If the engine quits on takeoff, you have to be willing to put it into the trees off the end of the runway. Because you’ve spent years building has no bearing on the outcome. You must be willing to sacrifice the airplane to save yourself. Builders have come to grief trying to stretch the glide after a problem, trying to make the airport or a softer landing spot because they don’t want to bend their new bird.

Truth is, doing your own flight testing takes more than piloting skill—though it absolutely starts there. You need to be careful, thoughtful, disciplined, and laser focused on the task at hand. When you land after the first flight and someone asks you how it felt, your answer should be more than “pretty good.” Instead, be precise: “Well, rudder trim’s a bit off, number 3 CHT is a little high, and I think the right main brake is sticking a bit.” Write that down (or, better, review the in-cabin video you so wisely employed), pull the airplane into the hangar where you can uncowl it, and inspect it like it’s the first time.

Then, once the adrenaline has worn off a bit, fist pump all you want. Just remember you have a bunch more of this ahead of you before your dream airplane is real.

This column first appeared in the Summer 2024 Ultimate Issue print edition.

The post Ultimate Issue: Are You the One for That First Flight? appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

Although Damm gave me a heading, I still wasn’t seeing the airport. “Keep going. You see that house and workshop on the top of the hill?” Yes, I do. “OK, the dirt strip is just to the west of that, aligned roughly east-west.” I kept looking to where the elevation appeared to flatten slightly, trying my best to pick out anything that looked like an airport. No luck.

Sensing my frustration, Damm helped: “You’re looking in the wrong place. See that hill?” I see Damm’s finger over my left shoulder. “That’s the runway.”

For a moment, I stopped giving the new CubCrafters UL bushplane much in the way of direction as the tumblers fell into place, and I realized that after about 30 minutes of flying, I’d be putting the company’s latest offering down on a “runway” that most pilots would try to avoid even after a full-blown engine failure.

You bush pilots out there know what happens next. The “sight picture” is really different when landing on a significant grade, making it tough to judge the roundout point. After a few circuits, I started to get the idea, understanding better each time how to judge speed, altitude, and descent rate. I really couldn’t tell you what the airspeed was—my focus was totally outside. Each landing was followed by a short taxi down the hill and then an uphill takeoff, despite the wind being calm.

Damm knew how to highlight the UL’s potential here—with two of us and nearly full fuel, the Carbon Cub handled the uphill departure with ease, climbing comfortably faster than the terrain without coming close to hanging the thing on the prop. That’s what a lot of wing, nearly 180 square feet of it, will do for you.

Horsepower helps too, and that’s perhaps the most surprising aspect of the Carbon Cub UL. In a break from the company’s long-standing adherence to Cub-style norms, the motivator up front isn’t the familiar Lycoming or Titan air-cooled engine. Instead, it’s the newest Rotax, the turbocharged, intercooled, 160 hp 916.

Why the change, and why now?

“We needed an airplane for international markets,” Damm said. “You have to have an airplane that runs on autogas. Avgas is available here, but in some places in the world, it simply isn’t. We also wanted an airplane that fit into the UL category around the world.”

• READ MORE: CubCrafters Unveils Carbon Cub UL

While the U.S. has light sport aircraft (LSA) for now—and Modernization of Special Airworthiness Certification (MOSAIC) for the near future—other aviation authorities have different requirements for “lightweight” aircraft. In many other nations, what is broadly referred to as the UL (or ultralight) category is not the same as our version. Most countries stick to the 600-kilogram weight limit (essentially the same as our 1,320-pound limit for LSAs on wheels), though there are exceptions that go as high as 700 kg (1,543 pounds).

It’s true that other CubCrafters models fit into the LSA weight limits, but what makes the new UL compelling for the company is the multifuel (avgas and 94-octane autogas) capability of the Rotax. In the time since the airplane was introduced at Sun ’n Fun 2023, market response has proven the Rotax to be a good choice, creating new interest in the brand.

No Small Project

Still, this was not a small engineering project. CubCrafters had assistance from Rotax, but the grunt work was committed at the company’s sprawling Yakima facility, where it builds three distinct lines of modern Cub-style airplanes, offers a builder-assist program for those who want to create their own, and even provides service and repair.

The good news is the liquid-cooled Rotax 916 is close enough in shape to the legacy engines that the packaging is almost self-starting. Luckily, the propeller is in the same place as with the Lycomings. But everything from there to the firewall is new and different, a process still ongoing when I flew the prototype UL.

• READ MORE: CubCrafters Delivers 1,000th Aircraft

Under the spinner, the opening that normally feeds the airbox or carburetor in a Lycoming installation ducts air to the oil cooler. In the copilot-side cheek, a splitter pulls incoming air back and toward the standard intercooler. Air entering the other side of the split and the pilot-side opening are led back to a pair of coolant radiators. A duct integrated with the top of the cowling helps feed a tall radiator just behind the engine while another is positioned along the lower surface of the cowling in the exit-air path.

This arrangement is very likely to change. My flight in the airplane, on a not particularly warm day, began to stress the coolant temperatures, something CubCrafters has seen in its testing and is working to remedy as R&D continues.

On the firewall is the Rotax-supplied, power-distribution system that manages the dual engine control units (ECUs) that, in turn, control fuel injection, ignition, and wastegate functions. That’s right, the 916 iS, like its nonturbocharged 912 iS brethren, is an electronic engine, with automotive-style fuel injection and ignition. It’s not a truly fly-by-wire system since the throttle is still mechanically linked to the pilot’s left hand, but the turbo system is managed by the ECU. Rotax’s engine-management technology is well proven in the 912 iS.

The engine itself helps the overall goal of weight reduction. At just under 200 pounds, the Rotax 916 iS is 40-70 pounds lighter than the CC340 engine offered in the middle-range and LSA-qualified CubCrafters mod-els. In addition, CubCrafters put the UL on a strict diet, with a lighter composite cowling (made out of pre-pregmaterial that’s lighter), titanium (instead of steel) landing-gear legs, and titanium firewall.

“Our goal is to have the UL, at 1,320 pounds maximum gross weight, have enough useful load for a 200-pound pilot, 120-pound passenger, 20 gallons of fuel, and 20 pounds of baggage,” said Damm.

If you’ve done the math, that’s an empty weight of 860 pounds, which is 32 pounds lighter than the listed spec for the Carbon Cub SS on which the UL is based.

Pilots familiar with the Rotax 900-series engine and, in particular, the turbocharged 915 iS or nonturbo 912 iS will be immediately comfortable in the Carbon Cub UL. The UL prototype uses the smaller SS-style instrument panel that, in this case, carries a compact 7-inch Garmin G3X Touch main display with an RS Flight Systems EMU (engine monitoring unit) display just to the left. It reveals crucial engine information such as manifold pressure, rpm, oil pressure and temp, coolant temp, fuel pressure and flow, total fuel quantity, and system voltage. It also shows throttle “percentage” and the status of Lanes A and B.

In the parlance of Rotax’s dual-channel ECU, “lane” refers to each leg of the parallel computing system. The engine can run on either but typically has Lane A running the show with Lane B humming along in the background, a faithful understudy ready to step in should the lead actor stumble off the stage. (By accident, of course.) You’re aware of the ECU status on both the EMU display and through two big annunciators that warn of a fault with either lane. It’s different from conventional piston aircraft but totally learnable.

Lined up on the runway, you can slide the throttle forward smoothly but quickly. From there, the Rotax leans into the job with real vigor and no apparent throttle lag or turbo surge. It accelerates to flying speed with the customary one notch of flaps in less than four seconds and just seems to levitate. Once rotated, and if you have no need to clear terrain, you can let the nose settle not far above the horizon and enjoy the view of the runway falling away from you. In no way did the UL feel like it was down on power compared to the midrange Carbon Cubs.

In deference to the early stage of the UL’s cooling system, we pulled back to “95 percent throttle,” which is how Rotax describes engine power settings through the instruments even if the percentage isn’t always exactly related to maximum power. We dropped the nose to attain

78 knots indicated (90 mph) and 500 fpm in the climb, where the coolant stabilized at 231 degrees Fahrenheit and the oil temp at 190 degrees. At this setting, the engine is pulling 37 inches of manifold pressure at 4,800 engine rpm.

• READ MORE: CubCrafters Announces Closing of Public Stock Offering

Later in the flight, we tested a full-power V_Y climb (61 kias, 70 mph) where we recorded 1,100 fpm. Fuel flow is 10.3 gallons per hour (gph) at 100 percent throttle. At V_X, the airplane is substantially nose up to 46 kias (53 mph) and still climbing better than 800 fpm. We followed that with a quick high-speed cruise check.

At 98 percent throttle, the 916 is happily churning away at 42 inches and 5,400 rpm, burning 9.9 gph. At 4,900 feet msl, we saw 115 ktas (132 mph true). I didn’t attempt to check the calibration of the pitot-static system for a couple of reasons. First, we were at a not ideal altitude for the turbo Rotax, which can produce maximum power to 15,000 feet and maximum-cruise power to 23,000 feet. Second, several aspects of the CarbonCub UL’s cooling system will change between now and when you can buy one, so high-cruise data is more likely to change than not.

A more realistic cruise speed would be 95 percent throttle and 6.4 gph, giving 104 ktas (120 mph true). Even more economical are the results at 94 percent throttle, where the UL trots along at 89 ktas (102 mph true) on 4.9 gph. To get that, the Rotax is pulling 32 inches at 4,700 rpm. Notable in this case is the engine’s smoothness and complete predictability with power changes. It moves from one thrust level to the next seamlessly.

Cub-Like Characteristics

Yes, there is a whole airplane behind the firewall, and it’s a known quantity in the Cub world. From a handling standpoint, the Carbon Cub UL is a tiny bit contradictory. It has the low-speed handling you want, tons of lift, and is capable of climb gradients to make your passengers whoop. (Best to warn them first.) These are the vaunted Cub-like characteristics that go into making it a supremely good short-field machine.

With practice, you could drop it in over a line of trees and have it stopped in just a few hundred feet. You’ll need to be on your game and willing to fly it slowly, with the angle-of-attack system beeping in your ear, but the airplane gives you tons of warning to the unloaded stall and recovers quickly. In fact, to get a serious break at altitude requires very aggressive control inputs.

But the UL also has some strong big airplane character. For one, it’s very strongly pitch stable, sticking to trimmed speed tenaciously. It’s a “rudder airplane” but not stupendously so, thus it won’t take long to get the hang of it. My sole complaint comes only because I have time in the other Carbon Cub models. For reasons of weight savings, the UL uses the earlier control system, which lacks the pleasurable lightness of the G-series flight controls found on the EX/FX and X/NX models.

In my world, where pilots of the Van’s RV are accustomed to fingertip-light controls, the Carbon Cub feels a tad stiff. It’s an airplane that wants all your fingers on the stick, but that payback is a strong sense of stability and excellent pre-stall feedback.

Back to the business side of things. CubCrafters feels strongly that its UL has worldwide potential. Since starting the program with Rotax more than two years ago, it launched the airplane, continued R&D work, and has begun building half a dozen examples as dealer demo/market survey aircraft. That’s not likely to be the final design, either.

“We like to get customers into the airplane to see what they like and don’t like,” said Damm. “And then we can iterate the design from there.”

The design should get locked in by mid-2024, with the manufacturing team refining its part of the process through the end of the year. Prices have not been set but will probably be closer to the $312,000 of the EX-3/FX-3 series than the current $237,000 of the Carbon Cub SS.

The airplane on these pages has been re-covered in the Oratex system, which is a “prepainted” concept that requires no solvents, filler, or paint after application, and then sent over to Europe for its wintertime tour. CubCrafters is trying the Oratex for that market in part because the system is lighter. But it’s also emblematic of the company’s approach to the legendary Cub design: Keep the traditional elements, but continue to try new things. New materials (hence the “carbon” in the Carbon Cub name) and even new engines.

What the Carbon Cub UL shows is that innovation can keep an airplane style so rooted in our history that it might as well have been conceived by the Wright brothers—still amazingly relevant a quarter of the way through the 21st century.

Build It Yourself

CubCrafters is unique in aviation in that it sells FAA-certified completed airplanes, provides airframe kits into the homebuilt world, and also offers a builder-assist program that blurs the lines between factory- and individual-built aircraft. To be licensed as an experimental/amateur-built aircraft, there has to be an individual builder (or group) on the paperwork who has convinced either the FAA or a representative that they’ve completed a “majority” of the work. This is colloquially known as the “51 percent rule.”

Defining what makes up a “majority” of the work is made easier by an FAA-accepted checklist of typical build tasks, including both assembly and fabrication. This list of tasks, used by all the popular builder-assist programs, helps define what the builder needs to do and what the factory is allowed to complete.

Typically, the builder is given more assembly tasks than raw fabrication because the company selling the kit is usually better at making the parts than a first-time builder. It’s important to understand that this checklist doesn’t document every single part or assembly but breaks it down into major categories—wing ribs, main spar, tail feathers, etc. What’s more, it doesn’t say how many of those things a builder has to do, so “fabricating” one wing rib gives the builder credit for all of them.

For CubCrafters, the builder-assist program is upside down from most. It’s structured as two weeklong visits to the Yakima, Washington, factory, the first totally focused on fabrication. Working alongside the team that creates the very same parts for production airplanes, the amateur builder participates in key processes that very strategically ticks all the boxes on the checklist. I have so far spent the first week helping to build one of the demonstrator Carbon Cub ULs and am due to return this spring for the second half of the project, which focuses more on assembly and inspection.

But for the first part, it’s a matter of using a massive hydraulic press to create wing ribs from accurately CNC-cut aluminum, helping to place sections of steel tube into a jig for a really good company-paid welder to assemble, forming key elements of the tail structure and assisting and helping to lay out pieces of fiberglass into the same molds used for the certified aircraft. (It’s worth noting that the amateur-built and certified parts are tracked and kept entirely separate, even as the raw materials themselves are exactly the same.)

The builder-assist program doesn’t really save money on the airplane, but it does give the owner a sense of accomplishment and a better understanding of what goes into it. CubCrafters does discourage builders from applying for a repairman certificate (available to homebuilders but only for their specific airframe). But the remaining benefit is the ability to make modifications later without needing an STC or other means of compliance. The builder in the program alongside me said this was the very reason he chose the builder-assist path.

CubCrafters Carbon Cub UL Cockpit at a Glance

A) Rotax’s most recent engines all have electronic ignition and fuel injection. These warning lights tell you if one of the parallel, redundant ECUs has a fault.

B) The engine monitor keeps the pilot in the loop.

C) To keep weight down, the prototype Carbon Cub UL uses Garmin’s smaller G3X Touch EFIS.

D) A special multifunction “mag” switch controls engine start and allows sequential testing of the redundant engine controls.

E) The Carbon Cub UL features a simple all-metal stick topped by a pitch-trim switch which seems to say everything about the CubCrafters no-nonsense approach.

CubCrafters Carbon Cub UL Specs

Price, as tested: Not available

Engine: Rotax 916 iS

Propeller: E-Props, three-blade, fixed pitch

Horsepower: 160 for takeoff, 137 max continuous

Seats: 2

Length: 23 ft., 3 in.

Height: 8 ft., 4 in.

Wingspan: 34 ft., 3 in.

Wing Area: 179 sq. ft.

Wing Loading: 7.37 lbs./sq. ft.

Power Loading: 8.25 lbs./hp

Cabin Width: 30 in.

Cabin Height: 52 in.

Max Takeoff Weight: 1,320 lbs.

Standard Empty Weight: 860 lbs. (est.)

Max Baggage: 200 lbs.

Useful Load: 460 lbs.

Max Usable Fuel: 24 gal.

Service Ceiling: TBD

Max Rate of Climb: MTOW, ISA, SL: TBD

Cruise Speed at 90% Power: TBD

Max Cruise Speed: TBD

Max Range: TBD

Stall Speed, Flaps Up: NA

Stall Speed, Full Flaps: 32 mph

Takeoff: 60 ft.

Landing: 110 ft.

This feature first appeared in the April 2024/Issue 947 of FLYING’s print edition.

The post Latest CubCrafters Design Looks Back and Ahead appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

More importantly, according to Braly, after testing the fuel received a certificate of authenticity (COA), which then makes it “commercially available.”

• READ MORE: Long-Term Unleaded Fuel Test Begins in AOPA Baron

With the announcement, Braly and GAMI hope to counter critics that say while the fuel has received FAA approval for use under the STC process, it’s not commercially available. The term is important because of a consent decree taken in California that could force the changeover to an unleaded fuel when an alternative to 100LL becomes commercially available.

• READ MORE: G100UL Unleaded Avgas Flight Trial

Editor’s Note: This article first appeared on Kitplanes.

The post GAMI Says It Has 1 Million Gallons of G100UL appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

Virgil Irwin, a Bearhawk 5 builder himself, has taken over for longtime owner Mark Goldberg. Generally speaking, it will be business as usual for the company, which has a manufacturing facility in Mexico. Irwin has moved other aspects of kit production from Texas to Fairview, Oklahoma, about 75 miles northwest of Oklahoma City.

Why the change? Goldberg said that “after turning 70 years old 20 months ago, I began to think it was time to let someone younger take charge of the company.”

Irwin, a builder, was no stranger to Goldberg and Bearhawk.

“At the time, I was in search of a utility airplane that could serve overseas in a remote environment,” Irwin said. “I needed true off-airport capability with great cross-country performance.”

He would be the first kit customer of the six-place Model 5. That airplane would eventually be shown at EAA AirVenture 2023 and then began some discussions about the company itself. Irwin, a serial entrepreneur since his late teens, wondered if Goldberg was ready to retire at about the same time Goldberg was thinking that very thing.

Goldberg is clearly excited about this new challenge and hugely complementary of the work designer Bob Barrows and Goldberg did. In particular, Irwin has praise for the Mexico facility, saying it’s clean and efficient and, perhaps most important, has many longtime employees as well as a steady stream of those wanting to join. It’s located near a Volkswagen manufacturing facility but it’s not hard to compete for the workers.

“We pay them well and they have a real sense of belonging,” Irwin said.

For the short term, Irwin is concentrating on updating the kits surrounding the Model 5, the company’s largest offering and likely to be the most popular overall.

“We’re going to update the kits,” he said, “and begin providing the kind of support modern builders look for.”

In particular, the new Bearhawk will work on things simple (like a complete landing-light kit for the Model 5) and complex (like a comprehensive firewall-forward package). Irwin acknowledges that the airplane is terrific, but some aspects of the kitting are a bit behind the times, and it’s his intention to close that gap as quickly as possible.

The goal is to build 40 kits this year as well as building out subkits and increasing the standard content level for the Model 5, planning for in-shop builder assistance and even prefabricated avionics panels. Along with a new FWF package, Irwin said he’s looking into revised cowlings that may improve cooling and provide a bit more speed. Irwin also said kit prices are likely to increase with the new content, but he’ll honor existing purchase agreements on all kits.

Once he feels that the Model 5 kit is thoroughly updated, he’ll begin working through the rest of the catalog, which includes four other models from the LSA to the four-seat Model 4.

“I am especially appreciative of all the new friends made during these 23 years,” Goldberg said in a statement. “This includes customers all over the world who are now friends, and vendors and others who have become much more than just business associates. I learned a tremendous amount from working with design engineer Bob Barrows whose engineering talent is just off the scale. My involvement with the company will continue as long as is needed to make the transition smooth and easy.”

More information can be found at www.bearhawkaircraft.com.

Editor’s Note: This article first appeared on Kitplanes.

The post Bearhawk Aircraft Has a New Owner appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

Now it’s down to three possible locations: Casper, Wyoming; Pueblo, Colorado; and Roswell, New Mexico. Off the list, for now, are Buckeye, Arizona; Thermal, California; and Wendover, Utah, though RARA says the sites “each have tremendous merit and value in their own right. We will be reaching out to them to continue discussions on their potential as expansion venues in the near future.” RARA is due to announce the final choice in March.

• READ MORE: Regional Growth Forces Reno Air Races to Look for New Home

“We’ve been overwhelmed by the amazing, positive feedback we’ve received from the six bidding communities as a whole, as we search for the future home for the National Championship Air Races,” said Fred Telling, CEO and chairman of the board for the Reno Air Racing Association. “Through a rigorous vetting process, we feel confident that one of these three locations will provide the right mix of elements our event needs to continue to race well into the future.”

According to RARA, “a series of site visits were conducted at each of the six locations by some RARA board members, class pilot representatives, and other committee participants to assess the viability of hosting the pinnacle air racing event at their facilities. A myriad of factors were taken into account, including the ability of venues to host large crowds, handle hundreds of aircraft, and support the large racecourse needed for the event.”

These venues are vying for air racing events in 2025. For 2024, Reno will host an airshow October 4-6 featuring the U.S. Navy Blue Angels, the Canadian Snowbirds, and the U.S. Air Force F-16 Viper Demonstration Team. RARA claims that the races brought an estimated $100 million in annual economic impact to the Reno area.

Editor’s Note: This story originally appeared on KITPLANES.

The post Three Locations Vie for National Championship Air Races appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

But countering the success of the company’s designs and their unprecedented popularity were challenges compounded by the COVID pandemic, a failure by a key supplier and missteps of its own. Monday’s Chapter 11 filing gives some clues to the situation Van’s faces that pushed the company into a form of bankruptcy that most often precedes a reorganization and recovery. (Van’s is not liquidating. Chapter 11 is designed to give a company some relief from liabilities and enable a reorganization into a sustainable business.)

In the Chapter 11 declaration is this summary: “Until recently Van’s operated successfully without bank loans or other lines of credit, relying on customer deposits and earnings for its working capital.” But then Van’s faced “a combination of unforeseen, significant events occurring over a relatively short period of time increased Debtor’s [Van’s Aircraft’s] costs, doubled its normal inventory levels, slowed deliveries, and strained Debtor’s cash flow to the breaking point.” Support from founder Dick VanGrunsven since September has kept the company afloat.

• READ MORE: Van’s Aircraft Files for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Protection

One could argue that Van’s trouble started with an issue regarding quickbuild kits. The offshore constructor failed to adequately corrosion-proof parts of the assembly, which led Van’s to a time-consuming side project to understand the nature of the problem and its scope, and construct a remedy. The issue is described in the declaration as a “multi-million-dollar setback” for Van’s. Moreover, it contributed to a growing backlog in ordered kits and extended delivery times for customers.

At the same time, there was unprecedented demand for kits during the early stages of COVID. (In fact, the entire homebuilt industry witnessed a surge in popularity, with all major kit manufacturers reporting greatly increased sales in 2020 and 2021.) For Van’s, kit sales rose from 1594 during 2019 (already a very good number for the company) to 2508 in 2020 and 3982 in 2021. According to the filing, revenue actually decreased from $31.5 million in 2019 to $31.1 million in 2020, despite a 1000-unit increase in orders. Van’s didn’t get the bulk of the kit payment until shipment. In 2021, however, the big increases in order began to show up in revenue, increasing to $37.6 million in 2021 and $52.6 million in 2022. Net income, as described in the declaration, was $2.6 million in 2019, $3 million in 2020, but dropped to $2.1 million in 2021 as investments to increase capacity began to appear in the financials. In 2022, Van’s net income turned red, with a loss of $3.3 million; it lost $1 million through the end of August this year against revenues of $43 million.

It’s important to understand that Van’s was already operating at or near capacity in 2019. Along with technical changes to the kits over time that placed more work at the factory (steps the builder would not have to perform, an expectation in the modern kit-aircraft world), Van’s found itself with greatly increased demand and set about finding ways to meet it.

Because the vast majority of the company’s kit parts are known as “pre-punched” parts and the machines that do the punching formed the production roadblock, Van’s looked for ways to increase capacity by outsourcing some of this step. One way was to have the parts normally punched instead have their holes cut by a laser. This is a common method for automating manufacture of sheet metal parts, along with CNC routers, punches and water-jet cutting. In fact, Van’s had been using laser cutting for some parts and then elected to laser-cut more of them.

Builders began to notice that some laser-cut parts would crack during the dimpling process—where the metal is formed for the purpose of installing flush rivets—and that eventually started Van’s engineering department down the path of discovering why this was happening. Many builders felt that Van’s was slow to acknowledge the problem and that by the time it did, there was a significant quantity of laser-cut parts out in the world. Van’s turned its full attention to the problem and identified the parts in question—more recently, they were able to far more accurately predict which specific airplane kits were likely to have the suspect parts. Latest estimates are that some 1800 kits are affected.

These issues would challenge many companies but they were compounded by other events, as the declaration shows. “Van’s order file doubled in the 2020 and 2021 period. At the same time, supply chain issues, and supplier shutdowns slowed productions of key components, increasing back orders and delaying order completions, requiring Debtor to hire and train more staff. Wages increased, and shipping costs rose more than four-fold during this period. Stated simply, without realizing it, Debtor was selling a high volume of aircraft kits below its cost. The combination of all these factors overstressed Van’s workforce, operating support systems and management skills resulting in a series of one-off but very costly errors.” The declaration also notes that, “Some of its senior employees with deep familiarity with both office and manufacturing process workings chose to retire during COVID.”

The picture painted is of a company overwhelmed by overlapping challenges, started by the primer issue with quickbuild kits and followed closely by a global pandemic that simultaneously cut into its manufacturing capacity, dramatically increased costs and, perhaps ironically, also greatly boosted demand. That in the effort to catch up with demand the company also lost track of internal costs and failed to increase kit prices (as one remedy) is one inescapable takeaway from the factual descriptions in the Chapter 11 declaration—and a good indication of the remedies needed to define its path forward.

Editor’s Note: This article first appeared on KITPLANES.

The post Van’s Bankruptcy: How Did It Get Here? appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

Van’s current challenges result from “a combination of significant events over a relatively short period of time [that have] increased costs, doubled normal inventory levels, slowed deliveries, and strained our cash flow to the breaking point,” the company says. It cites increases in manufacturing still evident from the COVID slowdown, an issue with primer used by a subcontractor in quickbuild components and the most recent problems with laser-cut parts, which were a response to help increase production capacity at a time when Van’s was experiencing historically high demand. Builders discovered that the laser-cut parts tended to crack during the dimpling process. “Although our testing proved that laser-cut parts are functionally equivalent to punched parts, belief among many builders is that they are unsuitable for use,” the company says. “This has resulted in an unmanageable number of requests to replace laser-cut parts and cancel orders. More than 1800 customers are currently affected by this issue, some of whom have received more than one kit.”

As part of the announcement, Van’s said that “starting today through mid-November, Van’s will be focused on assessing the internal changes necessary to address these issues. This means some of the typical day-to-day operations at Van’s will be affected while our team develops plans to correct the problem.”

Those changes include streamlining the company’s efforts to focus on replacing laser-cut parts for existing builders and reassessing its manufacturing processes. “During this period, shipments will be delayed, kit orders will not be processed, and refunds will not be issued,” the company says. “We will be unable to conduct factory tours and demo flights. We are adjusting our daily operating hours. Starting Monday, October 30th we will be open from 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Pacific Time each business day. Our builder technical support hours will shift to 8:00 to 9:30 a.m. and 3:00 to 4:00 p.m. each business day. This is a permanent change.”

In the background, Van’s has “assembled a small team of experienced advisors to assist us” from Hamstreet & Associates, a Portland, Oregon-based firm that “leads troubled companies through financial and operational crises, and delivers results.” That team includes interim CEO, Mikael Via, who had served Glasair Aviation in the early 2000s and developed the Two Weeks to Taxi builder-assist program. Hamstreet is expected to provide financial expertise as well as other interim officers to help Van’s move forward.

Builders and potential Van’s customers are likely to wonder about pricing and availability in the future. “Van’s Aircraft faces several challenges that require us to take time between now and mid-November to perform an internal assessment of our inventory, production, and shipping capabilities as well as overall operating efficiencies,” Van’s says. “During this time, we will be evaluating all reasonable means of satisfying builder concerns regarding laser-cut parts. At the same time, we will be reviewing the costing of our parts and kits.”

Van’s is expected to issue updates via its website in the near future.

Editor’s Note: This article first appeared on KITPLANES.

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