Can EAA help?

I'm sure I can build a plane, but I'm not an engineer or designer. I have no way to recognize a typo, or that information is missing or just plain inaccurate. If the plans don't indicate what bolt goes into a particular hole, what am I to do? EAA should create a way for builders to submit the errors and omissions they find on plans along with corrections. The folks who sell plans should update them so the information is correct and complete. With the Hatz Classic, right off the bat there was a discrepancy between grain direction for a gusset. It's been one problem after another.

There's no reason for builders to fill their forums and waste time while getting frustrated with plans related questions. Let's get them fixed. Why haven't those who completed a project documented all the problems?

So, EAA, if you can, create a centralized location where builders can submit helpful information that identifies problems in the plans and their solutions/corrections. Thank you.

Typin on a phone, so short reply.

I can see a builder use a tip that was perhaps not the best way to do something. If unfortunate things happened, I see a lawsuit against EAA. "Well, they implicitly blessed the tip by allowing it on their website!!"

Remember: lawyers chase the $$$, so easier to go after EAA than a part time Hatz website.

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Originally Posted by CarlOrton

Typin on a phone, so short reply.

I can see a builder use a tip that was perhaps not the best way to do something. If unfortunate things happened, I see a lawsuit against EAA. "Well, they implicitly blessed the tip by allowing it on their website!!"

Remember: lawyers chase the $$$, so easier to go after EAA than a part time Hatz website.

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Very unfortunate but that is exactly how it would go down, not a if but when.

All the legal baloney aside, while the EAAis a good resource for building techniques and tips, the EAA is not the appropriate resource for this. Almost every type of plane built has a forum, newsletter, or type group where you can interact with other builders. That's the place to get information about your particular set of plans. Some kit manufacturers do periodic updates of plans and host a forum for their aircraft type, so are very proactive about making sure you get the latest updates for your plane. However, many aircraft plans are no longer in the hands of the original designer, but instead are in the hands of someone that just prints and sells them. Those guys aren't going to do any updates or changes to the plans. The type groups and forums is the place to get what you need.

-CubBuilder

Welcome to home building!

The answer to the bolt question is AN-4, unless that's too big around; then it's AN-3. ;)

Like you, I came to homebuilding with a woefully short skill set, and was often flummoxed by vague or even incorrect instructions in the plans. Or stuff just plain left out! There's a lot of reasons for it, some of them good, some bad, but all disconcerting.

First, a lot of the plans, especially in older designs, come from a prototype - the designer built the plane based on his working drawings, and then produced the actual plans based on what he did. I'd bet a dollar the gusset grain is in the wrong direction on the prototype, or it was drawn at the end of a long day and just put in incorrectly. Or the designer thought there was a better way of doing things than what he did on it and put that in the final drawings.

Second, it might not matter. Imagine if you built a bookshelf that came out pretty good and then someone asked you to make plans for it. When you decided where the bottom shelf went, chances are you put it where it looked best and was high enough to clean under but not much more....now quantify that with an exact measurement so someone can replicate it. An eighth of an inch either way probably doesn't matter....unless you've designed it to allow a Kirby vacuum cleaner to just barely fit underneath and the Big Book of Stuff to just slide between it and the next shelf above - then it does. Finding out when a measurement is critical and when it isn't is where builder groups and the designer himself (if available) is invaluable.

Third, a lot of plans have holes in them because every builder winds up doing the same task in a different way, and the designer has figured that it's better to leave it off than answer questions on why he put the way he did it in the plans. In my kit and plans there's no panel layout, no fuel tank mounting or seat instructions....Robert Baslee correctly knew that whatever he drew would be discarded by 90% of everyone building from his plans.

I mounted my fuel tank using two great big aluminum straps. Others build cages for them. Others use steel banding material. All are "correct" in that the fuel tank is firmly mounted in the right place (and there's only one place to put it), and none are superior to the others.

Each aircraft we build is a one-of-a-kind custom machine; no two are alike! Even the pre-punched rivet hole RV's are each a custom job, even though they get pretty close to each other. One doesn't have to be an engineer to think of a slightly different way of doing something on an aircraft that is slightly different in technique without compromising the critical parts of the design.

Building an airplane is a helluva educational experience. As in "for experience and recreation."