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Show me someone building an airplane. Oh sorry, you need an FAA license for that...

Check out the Experimental Aircraft Association. Visit the Oshkosh Fly-In. FAA regulations on experimental aircraft are quite lenient. You can't carry passengers or fly over heavily populated areas, which is reasonable enough. For flight test, there's the Mojave Air and Space Port. "My job is to give people permission. Every day in the skies over Mojave and on the ground at Mojave Air & Space Port, people take enormous risks, which someday will yield great things for all humanity." -- Stuart Witt, CEO, Mojave Air & Space Port.

How about a rocket?

"You want to test a rocket engine? This is a place where you can do that." -- Board of Directors, Mojave Air and Space Port. SpaceShip One and various X-Prize trials have launched from Mojave. Rotary Rocket flew from there, although not very far. I know people at TechShop building upper stage engines for orbital insertion.

Flying car? Forget it...

There are several ultralight helicopter kits. Quadrotors seem to get bigger each year. Thrust-type VTOLs need a lot of power, which usually means jet engines, which means a flying car will cost about as much as a small bizjet, which limits the market. Paul Moller built a flying car; it doesn't work, but that's Moller's problem, for which he's been making excuses for 40 years. I had some hopes for Urban Aeronautics out of Israel, which was showing a non-flying mockup in 2010, but they never made it fly.

Government is not preventing you from doing any of these things.

I wonder how exactly one pulls off a "private air" anything, what with the FAA, airports, and various safety groups all being government bodies...

Use of public airspace does not make an airshow produced by private individuals a government function. Obtaining the necessary FAA waivers and TFRs and NOTAMs for an airshow does not make a private airshow a government function. There are private, state, city, and county run airports all over the place. And EAA is a private organization that regularly holds one of the largest aviation events in the world.

You don't hang out at general aviation airports or with pilots much, then. See my comment below, and if you can at all arrange it, try going to EAA Airventure in Oshklosh, Wisconsin this August. You will learn. And have LOTS of fun.

Besides this EAA Electric Airplane prize, there's 3 more that I know of:
- The biggest purse is the CAFE foundation Green Flight Challenge $1.6M Presented at Airventure in Oshkosh this July
- The Lindberg Electric Aircraft prize is an annual prize that started last year at Oshkosh
- The Berblinger prize 3 weeks from now in Germany

Not just for cool RC model airplanes any more. E-flight is on the rise - the first killer app will be UAV's and motorgliders.

As an Oshkosh native...bring it on...We'll see you this summer. Notice we already have the terrafugia and the jetpack coming. Admit it. You're all jealous.

They're tackling the problem from another point of view

I am a pilot, and currently own a Piper Cherokee 140. I have many friends who own RV-4's , RV-6's and at my local airport two groups of people are presently building an RV-8 and an RV-10.

I have just bought the plans for an RV-7 myself, and hope to have it completed and flying within 4 years.

I'll be at Oshkosh this year to see the Rocket Racers up close and personal.

If you have any interest in aviation at all, you need to come to Oshkosh, WI yourself, the last week in July of this year. It's a fantastic experience.

The Reno Air Races get an attendance of over 200,000 each year.

http://www.rgj.com/news/stories/html/2005/09/13/10 8687.php

The EAA AirVenture Oshkosh show gets 750,000+ visitors.

http://www.airventure.org/2006/about/history.html

Well, it's got an airfield with a long enough runway to land most large jets (I've seen 747's, C5's, and the big Russian cargo jets there(*)). Even the Concord was able to land/take off there. The airport isn't that busy so it can basically be dedicated to just the airshow the entire week.

Besides, given that it's a fly-in, I suspect that part of the appeal to the pilots is that they get to fly someplace to go to it :)

A complete history can be found here .

(*) I grew up in Ripon, WI under the approach route. Having a C5 suddenly go over your house in a location where the largest plane normally going over is a crop duster is quite an experience....

For those curious about why Rutan was in a small city of 40k, EAA is the host of the largest air show in the world.

Living close by, I can say that it can be a bit of a clusterf--k.

Background: I'm a private pilot who owns a 1946 Luscombe, a plane not considered to be a terribly "safe" airplane by many. But as with any machine, treat it with the respect it deserves and it will reward you. I prefer to program in assembly and C, as well.

I'm not convinced that a "safer" airplane actually makes one safer. Twin engine airplanes have worse statistics for post-engine-failure accidents; the Ercoupe (a stall/spin-proof airplane which was about the only non-tailwheel plane of its time), was designed for a high level of safety but didn't have that great a record (and by the end of its life, had had all the safety features removed save the nosewheel); and the parachute-equipped Cirrus had a horrendous safety record early on.

See, for example,
http://www.aopa.org/asf/asfarticles/2004/sp0402.ht ml

I think that reliance on safety features may tend to lead one into more unsafe behavior than one would otherwise engage in. I can say from personal observation at the AirVenture fly-in (http://www.airventure.org/) this summer that Cirrus corporate demo pilots pushed the safety envelope to the point of being grounded this past year.

It's an old truism that the superior pilot relies on superior judgement to prevent the need of his superior skills. With very, very few exceptions, wings don't fall off airplanes until some time after the pilot makes a bad decision.

That's lame, to say the least. There are much more capable homemade rockets capable of reaching a mile or more.

One kilometer is 3280 feet. I've taken my homebuilt airplane (RV-7) to 18,000 ft (5.48 kilometers, the highest allowed in VFR flight) several times still showing 500 fpm climb and other RV builders with setups similar to mine have made it to 25,900 ft. (7.59 kilometers)

This rocket costs 2.1 million Yen is $20,000 US dollars. A finished RV will cost you about twice that but it'll get you a lot higher! And that's the key...it gets you a lot higher.

If they could get these rockets to say, 50,000 ft. or more...then it would get interesting. ...and don't even get me started on the Flying Tiger (48,000 ft.).

I saw Rutan at Oshkosh this weekend . He said he was amazed at how expensive his program turned out to be. While he couldn't reveal the exact dollar amount only that it was as expensive as one Hour of science on the ISS. Oh and for those of you who were wondering the sigificance of N328KF. 328,000 feet is the goal. IMHO he is close, real close. If I had to pick a date it would be 10:35 AM December 17th 2003.

For one week each summer, Wittman Field in Oshkosh Wisconsin is the busiest airport in the world. If you have any interest in aviation, consider this your Mecca. Check out http://www.airventure.org/ for a preview. If scheduling problems prevent you from getting there during the fly-in, at least visit the mueseum: http://www.airventuremuseum.org/

The house on a Rock is interesting.

As is the annual experimental aircraft airshow in Oshkosh. (This is the site for 2003, but maybe you'll make the 2004 show).

Good camping in Wisconsin, especially in the northern areas near the Wolf River.

I attended a talk given by Rutan (at EAA Oshkosh) back when the XPrise was announced. He said he's gonna win it and once we see his solution, we will be amazed at how simple it was. Now that was back in 1996, since then he has built Proteus which was just a prototype for The White Night He's been thinking about this for quite some time. I bet he takes the prise this year.

I can hardly wait to hear what he is gonna say this year at Oshkosh His talks are always entertaining and insightful.

I attended a talk given by Rutan (at EAA Oshkosh) back when the XPrise was announced. He said he's gonna win it and once we see his solution, we will be amazed at how simple it was. Now that was back in 1996, since then he has built Proteus which was just a prototype for The White Night He's been thinking about this for quite some time. I bet he takes the prise this year.

I can hardly wait to hear what he is gonna say this year at Oshkosh His talks are always entertaining and insightful.

Not exactly a surplus store, but you can find great functional and non-functional aerospace related stuff at the huge "flymarket" held at the Experimental Aircraft Association's (EAA) Airventure Airshow in Oshkosh, WI during the last week of July every year (July 29th to August 4th this year).

It's also a great chance to visit the world's largest airshow (and busiest airport for one week a year) with nearly 1 million attendees and thousands of aircraft. The EAA also hosts a number of other events each year across the US that probably have smaller fleamarkets for used and surplus items.

This annual gathering of aviation "hackers" is definitely worth the drive and even better if you can fly in!

From the comments I am surprised at how few people here fly small planes. There are over 9000 airstrips in the US and over 100,000 small planes.

The Experimental Aircraft Asscociation is a group of people interested in these types of aircraft. There's a large airshow hosted by them in Osh Kosh.

These aircraft are subjected to thorough inspection by certified mechanics and FAA inspectors during their construction or restoration. In addition, owners of this type of aircraft tend to be more knowledgable than your average privat pilot. The result is that aircraft certificated (it's an FAA term, not a typo) as experimental aircraft have an excellent safety record. You can fly them anywhere any other private aircraft may be flown.

The interesting thing about talking to Mr. Kamen while he was standing on the Segway, aside from the fact that he was of course towering a full head above everybody else in the crowd, was the fact that he is one of those people who likes to lean towards you as he talks. As I learned firsthand, talking to one of these people who happens to be standing on an electric scooter that is controlled by leaning your body means that you are constantly being semi-run-over by the thing, in direct proportion to the intensity of the point the other person is trying to make! He kept having to back the thing up a couple feet, like it was an overly-friendly horse that wanted to lick my face (instead of an overly-pricey scooter that wanted to run over my feet).

(I would have liked to have a go with his scooter though, as I was not relishing the prospect of having to slog all the way back across the show grounds to the car yet again!)

mcb