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Thread: Homebuilt Aircraft Production - 1950 to 2018

  1. #1
    rwanttaja's Avatar
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    Homebuilt Aircraft Production - 1950 to 2018

    I posted a version of this in another thread, but as I dug deeper, I figured it needed to be a separate thread.

    The FAA aircraft registration database includes a "Year Manufactured" column. Nominally, this should be the year a registered homebuilt obtained its airworthiness certificate. About 7% of registered aircraft don't include an entry in this column.

    The list of active aircraft only tells you how many aircraft built in a given year are still registered. However, the FAA database also includes a list of aircraft that have been removed from the registry. If one adds the number of active aircraft from a given year to the number of homebuilts from that year that have been deregistered, this should produce an approximation of the total number of homebuilts produced that year.

    Here's the result:



    Kind of an interesting result. There's a peak around 1980, and one around 2005.

    I don't really know why homebuilt production fell off in these periods, but there's one tantalizing hint: They're both around the times that new types of light personal aircraft became popular: The ultralight movement, starting in the early '80s, and the Light Sport era, starting in about 2005. Both cases would have affected the number of EAB aircraft produced. However, even with the combination of the ELSA and SLSA aircraft after 2005, the total number of custom aircraft (EAB, ELSA, and SLSA combined) still tapered off after 2007.

    Ron Wanttaja

  2. #2
    Sam Buchanan's Avatar
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    Ron, that is interesting data and nicely presented. I think a major factor in the numbers during the past 25 years is economic. The RV population closely follows the overall trend and is due to RVs being the predominate aircraft family in the homebuilt community. We saw a huge RV population boom in the early 2000's and we attribute that to the internet bubble of the late '90's. Money was flowing freely and a huge number of kits were purchased in the late '90's. The bubble burst in 1999 but all those aircraft appeared in the early 2000's as they were completed. Another economic bust occurred in 2008 with a resulting decline in registrations. We are still in the process of recovering aircraft registrations from that downturn. In spite of the good economy in recent years, the pilot population is aging and I doubt we will see a large rebound this time as we did in the mid-2000's.

    I don't think Light Sport is a significant factor since there are relatively few kits (compared to total builds) that fall into that category.
    Sam Buchanan
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    rwanttaja's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Sam Buchanan View Post
    Ron, that is interesting data and nicely presented. I think a major factor in the numbers during the past 25 years is economic. The RV population closely follows the overall trend and is due to RVs being the predominate aircraft family in the homebuilt community. We saw a huge RV population boom in the early 2000's and we attribute that to the internet bubble of the late '90's. Money was flowing freely and a huge number of kits were purchased in the late '90's. The bubble burst in 1999 but all those aircraft appeared in the early 2000's as they were completed. Another economic bust occurred in 2008 with a resulting decline in registrations. We are still in the process of recovering aircraft registrations from that downturn. In spite of the good economy in recent years, the pilot population is aging and I doubt we will see a large rebound this time as we did in the mid-2000's.
    Good points, Sam. Kit sales are instantaneous, but don't appear in the registrations until the buyer completes the aircraft. So the effect of an economic downturn isn't apparent immediately.

    Here's the plot showing just RVs:

    Note that this includes both the EAB and SLSA/ELSA-registered RV-12s.

    Quote Originally Posted by Sam Buchanan View Post
    I don't think Light Sport is a significant factor since there are relatively few kits (compared to total builds) that fall into that category.
    The ELSA/SLSA fleet is about 1/3rd the size of the homebuilt fleet. Here's a plot showing the fleet size for each model year for ELSA and SLSA aircraft since 2005. Notice the same "spike" in the 2007 timeframe.

    This particular plot does not include the Deregistered aircraft.

    The huge surge in ELSA aircraft around 2007 is probably mostly due to the Sport-Pilot-Eligible EAB designs (such as Kitfoxes, Pietenpols, etc.) that were permitted to be registered as ELSA during the first two years of the Light Sport program.

    Ron Wanttaja
    Last edited by rwanttaja; 03-07-2019 at 12:30 PM.

  4. #4

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    Thanks again for digging into the numbers!

    I think the LSA numbers are always going to be a "boutique" statistic, as it's a very specific niche definition by the FAA.

    Here's what I mean by that - my little aircraft is by the rules "LSA compliant," meaning that as a Sport Pilot she's okay for me in both physical form and performance measures; she is not registered as an LSA of any formal stripe. I know someone who is building a Cub clone, which will be LSA compliant, but won't be registered as an LSA.
    The opinions and statements of this poster are largely based on facts and portray a possible version of the actual events.

  5. #5

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    I suspect the swell around 2000 was partially a reflection of Apollo kids reaching a point where they had the time and money to invest in something they were passionate about from childhood.

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