Homebuilt Fleet Sizes - 2017

Every new year, I download the FAA registration database and extract the number of homebuilt aircraft.

First: Total aircraft on the FAA registry:

Year	All Aircraft	Net Increase	Total Deregistered	New Aircraft		EAB	Net EAB Increase	EAB Deregistered	New EAB Aircraft
2009	374373	-1751	7018	5267	|	31914	672	464	1136
2010	373896	-477	5422	4945	|	32682	768	309	1077
2011	367857	-6039	11224	5185	|	33038	356	666	1022
2012	352198	-15659	20985	5326	|	32041	-997	1951	954
2013	317993	-34205	40188	5983	|	27946	-4095	5013	918
2014	312586	-5407	12588	7181	|	27909	-37	1084	1047
2015	314404	1818	8240	10058	|	28078	169	781	950
2016	320683	6279	4254	10533	|	28830	752	225	977
2017	312344	-8339	14961	6622	|	28451	-379	1296	917

The total number of registered homebuilts dropped by 379 last year, and this was due to an increased number of aircraft deregistered by the FAA. You'll see the same effect in the "All Aircraft" columns. Not sure what happened last year, but it may be due to owners deciding not to maintain the listings of inactive/no-long-existing aircraft. As you can see, the "All Aircraft" section shows the same impact...a big jump in deregistrations.

There were about 1020 new homebuilt N-Numbers last year, but roughly 100 were re-numbered existing aircraft. By my analysis, 917 brand-new homebuilts were added to the fleet last year. This is slightly less than average.

Ron Wanttaja

I can't imagine that half of the Harmon Rockets fell off in a year...

Look at the Bensen gyros that have disappeared! Amazing how popular they once were but now just think how many are wasting away in the dark dusty corner of a garage!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Kyle Boatright

I can't imagine that half of the Harmon Rockets fell off in a year...

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You're right, and as I look at the data, I see some other discrepancies. I'm going to re-run the previous year's data to get clarification. I've deleted the message, and will re-post in a day or so.

My guess is different assumptions were used in previous years.

Ron Wanttaja

Quote:

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Originally Posted by martymayes

Look at the Bensen gyros that have disappeared! Amazing how popular they once were but now just think how many are wasting away in the dark dusty corner of a garage!

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I started doing these analyses about twenty years ago. At that time, the Benson was the most-common homebuilt. Now, there are over 1700 in the list of deregistered aircraft.

My guess is that Step 1 of the Benson plans said, "Register with the FAA".

Ron Wanttaja

OK, let's try this again. The problem with my previous table stemmed from a change in processes midway through, and I reused data I'd generated earlier without checking. This'll hopefully be good, now...re-ran every year with the same processes.

This is a table of the number of FAA registrations, by year, for specific homebuilt types. To be included on the list, the FAA records must show the airplane is licensed as Experimental Amateur-Build (EAB). Note this does not include foreign-registration aircraft, nor does it include planes that have been deregistered. It also doesn't include SLSA or ELSA versions of planes such as the RV-12 or RANS series.

Note that there are about 6,000 obvious homebuilts in the FAA registry that have incomplete data entry, and are NOT listed as EAB.

Type	2009	2010	2011	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017
Air Command	56	56	56	54	36	35	31	31	25
Aventura	78	81	79	77	71	68	63	65	57
Avid	477	477	474	453	359	359	343	352	342
Baby/Junior Ace	278	281	279	275	230	228	228	230	225
Bede BD-4	155	153	151	134	98	91	93	92	90
Bede BD-5	77	77	78	70	49	43	40	41	38
Benson Gyro	720	717	689	518	271	218	200	198	158
Bowers Fly Baby	269	272	270	244	183	168	167	167	160
Challenger	628	659	670	657	584	594	586	593	578
Christen Eagle	245	240	238	238	214	207	206	205	204
Glasair	647	651	650	651	601	606	596	603	599
GlaStar/Sportsman	333	346	355	358	374	386	396	407	424
Harmon Rocket	78	79	83	84	88	85	87	85	85
Hatz	104	106	106	109	105	107	110	111	110
Kitfox	994	1009	1024	1027	905	918	936	950	946
Kolb (EAB)	298	304	301	296	248	241	236	235	227
Lancair (All Models)	785	814	830	850	835	847	855	875	866
Lancair IV	236	245	245	246	246	244	259	260	249
Midget Mustang	295	301	294	282	241	240	236	238	233
Murphy	183	186	187	182	173	171	171	176	174
Pietenpol	358	362	363	351	307	313	311	321	319
Pitts (EAB)	813	806	800	743	639	613	617	625	608
Pulsar/KIS	153	155	153	150	130	126	124	125	122
Quickie/Q2/Q200	305	303	297	277	168	148	140	143	130
Quicksilver EX-AB	345	348	335	296	170	163	156	162	154
RAF-2000 Gyro	123	123	126	124	113	114	110	111	90
Rand KR-2	349	350	346	314	194	175	167	167	154
RANS	625	656	682	684	627	638	659	677	673
Rotorway	489	502	500	495	404	392	374	380	350
Rutan Long-EZ	492	495	491	482	428	418	416	417	406
Rutan Varieze	476	473	467	423	323	297	286	286	272
SeaRey	213	219	229	237	231	242	242	249	255
Sonerai	309	309	307	287	215	199	194	194	184
Sonex	232	265	310	346	383	420	451	484	497
Steen Skybolt	305	301	292	284	250	246	247	248	235
Stolp	505	509	495	458	404	396	399	402	385
Stolp Starduster	441	446	435	404	357	349	351	352	337
Thorp T-18	313	311	305	290	261	259	259	262	257
Vans RV-3	183	183	179	172	155	154	158	160	152
Vans RV-4	965	976	982	987	952	956	955	965	958
Vans RV-6	1739	1767	1781	1786	1763	1783	1775	1795	1796
Vans RV-7	700	788	874	946	1000	1066	1118	1170	1220
Vans RV-8	840	913	959	1012	1038	1082	1123	1161	1198
Vans RV-9	371	419	452	484	522	552	588	611	630
Vans RV-10	177	221	253	281	304	340	366	394	419
Vans RV-12 (EAB)	0	8	19	28	36	49	53	63	68
Velocity	234	236	237	245	232	237	235	240	236
Volksplane	222	222	220	176	104	95	85	86	76
Zenair EX-AB	649	726	789	841	862	920	965	1013	1028

Ron Wanttaja

BTW, the list above accounts for about 2/3rds of the total homebuilt registrations.

Ron Wanttaja

Quote:

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Originally Posted by rwanttaja

BTW, the list above accounts for about 2/3rds of the total homebuilt registrations.

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You left out COZY's of all flavors. There's way more of those than many of those you did list...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Marc Zeitlin

You left out COZY's of all flavors. There's way more of those than many of those you did list...

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159 in 2009, 163 in the Dec 29 2017 registry.

I have filters for ~75 homebuilt types. Three things tend to lead to building a filter...I suspect that a particular type has a lot of examples, I get curious about how common a given type is, or I have a friend with one.

The process that generates the table above is an involved one. It uses my existing filters, but takes 5-10 minutes per year to extract the data for the ~50 or so types on the list. And that's almost all just pure processing time...it's only a couple of mouse clicks. And it gets longer the more types I'm including. Might be ways to speed it up, but I'm self-taught on Access and figure I'm lucky just to get consistent results.

I've generated an abbreviated PDF version of the FAA's registry of EAB aircraft. The list is sorted by aircraft model, and is about 6 meg in size.

Ron Wanttaja

Thanks Ron,

I used the link for the larger FAA list to look up Fokkers and saw there was a few 20 mins away that built a D VIII with an R670. Going to write him and see if I can visit. :)

Jim

Ron,

Let me know if you want to have someone else look at your database and make the process a bit faster (if possible).

Tim

Interesting that my Nieuport 11 is listed as a Nieuport II by the FAA, as are a lot of them...seems to be an even split. I guess I should have put a better swoop on the numbers on the paperwork.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Frank Giger

Interesting that my Nieuport 11 is listed as a Nieuport II by the FAA, as are a lot of them...seems to be an even split. I guess I should have put a better swoop on the numbers on the paperwork.

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Well, that's where the fun comes in when trying to extract given airplane types. Have to search RV-6, RV6, RV Six, RV XI, etc. Even have to do stuff like Bee Dee Four.

Searching for Nieuports is even tougher, because Nieuport is more of a description than an actual model. There are Redfern Nieuports, CIRCA Nieuports, Aerodrome Nieuports, and the good 'ol Newports. Finding a Nieuport in the registry is no guarantee it is like one's own.

FWIW, just searching for "Nieu", I get 81 total hits, of which 65 are confirmed registered as EABs.

Ron Wanttaja

I counted 91 Breezys of all the known registration variations. We're catching up on the Cozys!

I noticed that the number of scratch built homebuilts, like the Piet. and Baby ace have declined steadily over the years, but the more expensive kit built aircraft like the RVs, Sea Rays, and Sonex have steadily increased.
Do you suppose that's a reflection on the longevity of the design, or perhaps something else?
Perhaps it illustrates the improving affluence of a select set of builders, moving up to more expensive options?
Or maybe a collective fear of self-directed construction ie. no build manual to walk you through it.
Or, the higher performance is "in" now vs the low and slow of some older homebuilts.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Tench745

I noticed that the number of scratch built homebuilts, like the Piet. and Baby ace have declined steadily over the years, but the more expensive kit built aircraft like the RVs, Sea Rays, and Sonex have steadily increased.
Do you suppose that's a reflection on the longevity of the design, or perhaps something else?
Perhaps it illustrates the improving affluence of a select set of builders, moving up to more expensive options?
Or maybe a collective fear of self-directed construction ie. no build manual to walk you through it.
Or, the higher performance is "in" now vs the low and slow of some older homebuilts.

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The entire industry is intent on pushing builders upscale. Garmin? Dynon, AFS, GRT, etc... They, and Van's, and the rest of the industry know that you'll spend 5x the $$ on the panel and accessories for an RV-X than you'll spend for the panel on a Pietenpol. Same thing with the engine... Lycoming loves high end EAB's. So does Hartzell. They are glad to sell to the Piet or Fly-Baby builder, but the real money is in higher end stuff. So they push you in that direction. The plans only airplanes basically only exist in the little bitty AD's in the back of SA. You won't see a huge Hatz booth at Oshkosh. Fly Baby or Piet either. So those designs don't even register with today's 30 year old who becomes interested in building an airplane.

Directionally, Sport Aviation does the same thing. With few exceptions, which aircraft are featured? The expensive ones with professional panels, builder assist, and a $15k pro paint job. Right or wrong it is easy to believe that the EAA is happy to push the homebuilt fleet up market. EAA makes money off of the big vendors, whether in SA advertisements, booth space at Oshkosh, or in corporate donations. EAA wants those high dollar vendors happy and participating because that makes money for EAA.

So.. Short version: Marketing.

And now I'll go back to sanding on the RV-10 in the basement...

The number of "active" EA-B is about 21,000 (est). Goes up and down and above and below 20,000 past decade.
Latest info (2015) on left.
Attachment 6883

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Bill Berson

The number of "active" EA-B is about 21,000 (est). Goes up and down and above and below 20,000 past decade.
Latest info (2015) on left.

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Bill, that picture is teeny tiny and doesn't, apparently enlarge. But is it from the FAA GA Survey? Don't get me started on the GA survey. :-)

Ron Wanttaja

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Tench745

I noticed that the number of scratch built homebuilts, like the Piet. and Baby ace have declined steadily over the years, but the more expensive kit built aircraft like the RVs, Sea Rays, and Sonex have steadily increased.
Do you suppose that's a reflection on the longevity of the design, or perhaps something else?

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Pretty simple, really: People are more willing to pay money to reduce construction time.

You see the same thing in a lot of hobby fields. Thirty years ago, you either built an RC airplane from plans or from a kit where you still had to glue all the ribs, spars, stringers, bulkheads, etc. Nowadays, most are sold ready-to-fly or Almost ready-to-fly (ARF). People are less interested in spending time constructing.

Same thing for the full-scale airplanes.

Ron Wanttaja

Quote:

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Originally Posted by rwanttaja

Bill, that picture is teeny tiny and doesn't, apparently enlarge. But is it from the FAA GA Survey? Don't get me started on the GA survey. :-)

Ron Wanttaja

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Yes. From here : https://www.faa.gov/data_research/av...eral_aviation/
I tried to get GAMA data, but site kept crashing my iPad.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Bill Berson

Quote:

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Bill, that picture is teeny tiny and doesn't, apparently enlarge. But is it from the FAA GA Survey?

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Yes. From here : https://www.faa.gov/data_research/av...eral_aviation/

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OK...here's a version of that page that isn't so small.
http://www.wanttaja.com/ga_survey.JPG

As can be seen, the 2015 GA survey assumes that, out of 31,765 registered homebuilt aircraft, that 21,195 are active.

But let's look at a little history. The 2010 GA Survey produced an almost identical number of active homebuilts....21270. But the 2013 GA Survey showed only 17,503 active homebuilts. So, according to the GA survey, almost three thousand homebuilts quit flying in the 2010-2014 timeframe.

What ELSE happened during the 2010-2013 timeframe? The FAA re-registration effort. Where, if you owned an airplane and didn't renew the registration, the FAA removed your plane from the rolls.

OVER TWENTY PERCENT of the homebuilt fleet was removed from the registry in this process....about 7800 planes.

My guess is that is the vast majority of those 7800 aircraft were already inactive. Yet by the official FAA survey, roughly 2700 of them were planes that were active and flying?

What happened? Simple: The GA Survey was incompatible with the administrative changes to the registry.

The GA survey works by sending out hundreds of surveys to registered aircraft owners. Part of the survey includes recording how many hours your plane flies each year. If six out of ten returned surveys state that the airplane flew in the previous year, that means that 60% of the fleet is active. If there are 30,000 registered airplanes, the survey multiplies that number by 60% and announces that 18,000 of the registered aircraft are active.

However...not all surveys are returned. In some cases, it's just people who don't like replying to the government. In others, of course, the plane or its registered owner no longer exists. Non-returned surveys aren't factored in.

And, of course, the vast majority of the planes removed from the FAA rolls DID not return a survey. So these weren't counted either as active or inactive.

But what happened, of course, is that the NUMBER of airplanes decreased. So the total registered aircraft drops from 30,000 to 25,000... and 60% of that 15,000. So the number of active airplanes takes a hit.

I'm not arguing with the process the GA survey people use. I think it's about the only way to do it, and in normal circumstances, it's fine.

We *know* that the GA Survey people recognized what the re-registration effort did to the quality of their results. You'll note they didn't publish their results the first year of the re-registration effort ("The 2011 GA Survey is not available and data will not be published. ") So they know the results were ****ed.

Sadly, no one else does. And there are people making decisions on that bad data.

Take, for instance, the homebuilt accident rate. In 2010, there were 188 accidents for 21,270 active aircraft. About 0.88%. There were almost an identical number of accidents in 2014... 184. But the number of active aircraft had dropped to 18,873. So the rate shot up to 0.97%. That's an apparent 10% increase in the accident rate. And people did get upset, even though in reality, the number of active aircraft had actually increased (4,000 new homebuilts added between 2010 and 2014).

Ron "I told you not to get me started" Wanttaja

What about the Van's 10,000th aircraft number that was recently announced? Is that number worldwide?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Bill Berson

What about the Van's 10,000th aircraft number that was recently announced? Is that number worldwide?

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Yep.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by rwanttaja

Pretty simple, really: People are more willing to pay money to reduce construction time.

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Yes, but I suspect it's not just that. I'll speak purely from my own experience, and that of a few others I know. I think a lot of people are building now not because they have a lifelong dream to build an airplane on their own. They want to fly, they want to travel, and they don't want to be saddled with a 30-40-50 year old airplane that will eat them out of house and home. Mama doesn't want to climb into something that looks and smells like it's been parked on the ramp since the 70s. If you want a fast, efficient cross country traveling machine and don't want it to be a decades-long project, well, now there are very nice kits for that, and an average person can build one.

I'm building something now from plans - all wood, slow, totally unsuited for anything but short-range fun. That came after the RV. It may or may not ever get finished.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Bill Berson

What about the Van's 10,000th aircraft number that was recently announced? Is that number worldwide?

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Yep. My list is based on the US registry. In addition:

1. My list only covers those airplanes recorded as being licensed in the Experimental Amateur-Built category. Over 1200 RVs are not.

2. My list covers only those airplanes on the FAA registry as of 29 December 2017. Over a thousand RVs have been removed from the registry.

3. My list covers only those RVs where the builder used a common term as the aircraft make or model.... some variation of "RV" and a number.

Ron Wanttaja

Quote:

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Originally Posted by rwanttaja

My list only covers those airplanes recorded as being licensed in the Experimental Amateur-Built category. Over 1200 RVs are not.

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While I'm thinking about it, here's my list of probable Phantom Homebuilts from the 2016 registry.

"Phantom Homebuilts" is my term for common Experimental Amateur-Built aircraft that do not have a certification category entry in the FAA registration database. These are not officially counted in the tally of homebuilt aircraft, though are counted as a homebuilt if they crash.

This list starts out as a list of every aircraft that doesn't show a certification category (26,000+), of which I try to weed out the obvious production companies. There will be some cases that use modified manufacturer names that didn't get caught.

Ron Wanttaja

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Kyle Boatright

You won't see a huge Hatz booth at Oshkosh. Fly Baby or Piet either. So those designs don't even register with today's 30 year old who becomes interested in building an airplane.

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Funny you should say that in response to the 30 year old who just started a Junior Ace. ;)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Tench745

Funny you should say that in response to the 30 year old who just started a Junior Ace. ;)

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Yeah, but he's an outlier... of course we ALL are, to some degree.

Back in the 1950's , the community of aviation enthusiasts who labored in their garages were constructing generally simple aircraft with inexpensive materials. You could be a "working Joe" and build and fly an airplane. The prosperous years that followed, including the bubble of baby boomers with plenty of expendable cash (or at least who were able to get a second mortgage on their house) allowed the airplane kit industry to blossom.

But, folks, those days are ending. What this does to the kit industry over the next several years will likely be gruesome. But, as long as we can still weld up fuselages and plane spruce boards, we can keep flying.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by conodeuce

Back in the 1950's , the community of aviation enthusiasts who labored in their garages were constructing generally simple aircraft with inexpensive materials. You could be a "working Joe" and build and fly an airplane. The prosperous years that followed, including the bubble of baby boomers with plenty of expendable cash (or at least who were able to get a second mortgage on their house) allowed the airplane kit industry to blossom.

But, folks, those days are ending. What this does to the kit industry over the next several years will likely be gruesome. But, as long as we can still weld up fuselages and plane spruce boards, we can keep flying.

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My long standing prediction that in 30 years the General Aviation population will look very different, with a lot of high end production stuff and a lot of lower end homebuilts....kind of how it was in the early days of aviation.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Frank Giger

.... and a lot of lower end homebuilts....kind of how it was in the early days of aviation.

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You can count on me to occupy the lower end.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Frank Giger

My long standing prediction that in 30 years the General Aviation population will look very different, with a lot of high end production stuff and a lot of lower end homebuilts....kind of how it was in the early days of aviation.

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I'm puzzled by why you would make that prediction. Over the past 20-30 years there has been an ever-growing crop of "higher-end" homebuilts. In fact, don't I recall reading that there are more homebuilts added to the GA fleet every year than production aircraft? I would guess that for every lower-end scratch built plane completed, there are a dozen or two that would qualify as other than low-end. It seems like that trend has been increasing, not decreasing.

Or am I just misunderstanding your position?