Bighorn - I have a couple of off-the-wall comments for you. They might help you understand more about this whole issue and Experimental aviation in general.

First, there is no difference between Experimental airplanes and certified ones - except for the paperwork. For a plane to be certified it must first exist as an Experimental one. Then it goes through a gruesome set of examinations and tests to eventually earn a Type Certificate. (I'm twisting reality here a bit because there is a difference between experimental planes intended for production and ones intended for recreation and education, but this is a small point.) I suppose it is possible for experimental planes to be piles of junk made with materials from Home Depot and hardware from China, but this is not what I have seen in the real world. Real world kit planes and other examples of the Experimental - Amateur Built genre are just as sturdily built (or better) than factory built TC'd planes and use the same quality materials and hardware. In general the workmanship in flying Experimental planes is better than the factory planes, but this varies with the choice of factory plane to compare. Remember that an amateur that builds a plane expects to fly it himself while the union workers in airplane factories sometimes are more interested in quitting time than the quality of their work. So, for a mechanic to agree to work on a factory plane is a harder choice than to work on an Experimental in most cases.

My other point is the question of liability for injuries or other kinds of losses in Experimental planes is a lot less of a problem than most people imagine. The fact that a plane is Experimental is the first and usually the last issue considered when an accident happens. This is not the same situation as an accident in a certified plane. Everyone who gets into an experimental must see the big "EXPERIMENTAL" tag on the plane and there are other warnings required to tell passengers they are not in a federally approved airplane. It would take a really talented lawyer to convince a jury that someone who got past all these warnings was unjustly squashed flat because of bad design or workmanship in the airplane. I am not aware of this ever happening.

Paul
Camas, WA