The best hombuilt ?

[Bill Greenwood]

I was looikng at a Sport Aviation ariticle about rebuilding a RV-1, Richard's first airplane. I got to thinking and it dawned on me WHICH IS THE BEST HOMEBUILT? and I think the anwere is the RVs. Not just one RV, but the total of them. Now before you go off the deep end and tell me how stupid I am and how great some exotic product of a discontented and demented another would- be engineer is, stop and think. Sure everyone might have their personal favorite, there's no accounting for taste, some might say some weird looking Rutan design is best, or whatever is the fastest at Reno, or which runs on electricity.

But if we accept sort of a general category for judging homebuilts: that the design needs to result in a real airplane, one that actually has been built by many if not most people,and really flies and does so with a reasonable degree of safety and usefulness, and maybe retains some major part of it's value if and when the owner is ready to sell it.

I think the RV s have done this better than anyone, there are about 6500 flying. I am not really a homebuilt expert, so what do you guys think? And if the RV is first, as I feel it is, then what are the next 3 0r 4 best? Perhaps Lancair, high performance, good looks, but harder to build and fly. Glassair the same. And I think some Pitts were homebuilt, were they not, so those would be up there since there are a lot of them and it is such a foundation of acro. There's all the gorgeous baby fighters. but often hard to build and not easy to fly. Of course, everyone drooled over and admired the Hughes H-1 racer, but it would not fit any of the broader crtiereia.

I 'd like to hear others ideas, but please stay in the spirit of the premise, not as far out on a limb as you can go. And I am only asking about homebuilts, either from kit or plans, that are actually flying, not the next wonder whiz desgn.