Successful Chapter Building Projects

[FastEddie]

Hey All, I am a new Chapter President (since January). My chapter is fortunate enough to have a beautiful hangar with an upstairs workshop, a metal shop, a TIG welder and plenty of space for meetings, pancake breakfasts, and now building projects. However, our chapter has never done a true building project, just two recovering projects. Can anyone share how their chapter ran a building project? I am specifically interested in how you financed the build, how you ran building sessions, experimental or certificated (rebuilding), what you did with the airplane when it was done, etc.

[FastEddie]

Anyone out there that can help? I figured there would be a lot of chapters that have built airplanes.

[dusterpilot]

As you probably know, EAA Chapters cannot operate a chapter-owned aircraft. EAA Chapter 64 formed a separate sub-group a couple of years ago called the Scrounge Dawgs to build and fly a Pietenpol. It will be ready for first flight within the next week or two. Scrounge Dawgs is a separate not-for-profit organization, but all members are also Chapter members. I'm not a Scrounge Dawg member, but I've been following their progress closely since it began. When it was formed each member "bought" a fraction of the plane and all will be owners when it is completed. They meet a couple of times each week to work on it. I don't think anyone has more than $5K in it. When the group was formed, they offered a FREE share of ownership to any young person who was willing to join and work on the project. (What a deal! Unfortunately, I don't think anyone took advantage of that offer.) It's been a great project for the owners and a big motivator for our Chapter.
The Scounge Dawg's Yahoo Group can be found at https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/ScroungeDawgAviation/info

[martymayes]

As you probably know, EAA Chapters cannot operate a chapter-owned aircraft.

Correct. But could they not build an aircraft as a chapter project and sell it? Is there any publication that outlines what a chapter can or can not do under the EAA banner?

[Bret Steffen]

Chapters can most definitely build an airplane! However, as stated once the airplane is completed it must leave the chapter because they can't have an airworthy aircraft. The list of do's and do not's for the chapters is available here: http://www.eaa.org/~/media/files/eaa/chapters/resources/insurance/chapter_insurance_guide.pdf

There are a lot of chapters that have built or restored aircraft, many have it on their websites. Unfortunately we don't have an easy way to give you a list, but there are a bunch out there.

[deftone]

Whats the reasoning behind not being able to have an airworthy aircraft?

[PaulDow]

Even though chapters are separate legal entities, there's still the relationship to the mother ship. Jeff Skiles mentioned the quote they got for liability insurance for EAA if chapters operated aircraft. I forgot the number, but it was absurdly expensive.

[martymayes]

Doesn't EAA headquarters operate an airworthy aircraft/flying club for employees? Wasn't this supposed to be the "model" to set up future chapter flying activities? What's the status on that?

http://eaaforums.org/showthread.php?3990-Flying-the-EAA-Employee-Clubs-RV6A

[Marty Santic]

Sure would like to hear someone from the EAA answer the previous post. The EAA has an employee flying club, that has built and continues to own the aircraft. How can this be possible in light of the guidance the EAA has provided to the chapters. Even if, the employee flying club is a separate legal entity, the same connection to the mothership certainly exists.

[Jim Hann]

Sure would like to hear someone from the EAA answer the previous post. The EAA has an employee flying club, that has built and continues to own the aircraft. How can this be possible in light of the guidance the EAA has provided to the chapters. Even if, the employee flying club is a separate legal entity, the same connection to the mothership certainly exists.
I don't believe the same relationship exists between the Employee Flying Club and EAA as between a Chapter and EAA. IMHO they are completely different animals. A flying club implies partial ownership of the aircraft, or at least a financial interest in some part of the club, a Chapter does not. A club is more of an operational structure and financial system, a Chapter is purely social. I would need to go back through some of my old stuff regarding the flying club I was president of, and look at the Chapter info too.

I am not a lawyer nor did I stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night, YMMV.

[cluttonfred]

It seems like there would a couple of different ways to do this that would not run afoul of the EAA mother ship. The "Scrounge Dawgs" example above is one, where the separate group which just happens to be made up of chapter members builds and operates the aircraft.

I could also see the building project being an entirely chapter funded and conducted activity but then the completed aircraft being sold to a separate owners group or club which just happens to be made up of chapter members once completed. In both cases, as in dusterpilot's example, it's likely that only some of the members would want to own and operate the aircraft in any case.

I suppose it all comes down to whether or not the project is intended to be a purely educational and recreational project or a fundraiser for the chapter. If the latter, then you'd probably be better off with an auction or public sale of the chapter-build aircraft once airworthy.

One question I would have is, at what point does the aircraft have to leave the chapter? It's hard to sell an experimental aircraft that has not had it's basic flight testing and minimal flight hours for sign off.

[Pat Webb]

Hello everyone. I am the new Chapters Director here at EAA and while I am coming up to speed I thought I’d share a resource we recently made available on this admittedly complicated subject.

EAA has created a “Flying Club Handbook” that actually answers a number of the questions posed here in the past few days. As I mentioned, this is a bit of a complicated topic (the handbook is 71 pages long), but well worth a careful read to come up to speed on the challenges. Please see the link below.

https://www.eaa.org/en/eaa/aviation-communities-and-interests/pilot-resources/flying-club

Thanks!

[FastEddie]

Well, I see this thread has gone off-topic :(

The flying club concept has been around for a long time, so the issue of how a chapter can operate an aircraft has been asked and answered.

However, before you can fly it, you need to build it, which was the original question asked in this post.

Since no one monitoring this forum has ever successfully executed a chapter building project, perhaps EAA HQ could ask Charlie Becker to do a webinar on how HQ successfully executed the build of the Zenith by the staff? This would be a great project to use as a template, because (I assume) there were many people on the build who were first-timers.

Thanks in Advance

[Kim]

Back to the original topic. My chapter has a project which we are making progress on, but we have many of the same questions. How to finance, how and WHEN to transfer/sell to probably a flying club, etc. Right now, the finance is the biggest question. We have applied for our 501(c)3, so we will soon be able to accept donations, like a C-65 (hint, hint).

[griffin800]

Might ask on the homebuilder section of this forum. I suspect like a lot of other forums that not everyone watches all the different topics all the time.

Bill H.