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Makerplane Aims To Create the First Open Source Aircraft
cylonlover writes "MakerPlane plans to do for the aviation industry what Firefox and Linux did for computers. By adopting open source design and digital manufacturing, MakerPlane's founder John Nicol hopes to overcome the frustration and disappointment that most kit plane builders encounter. Over 60 percent of all kitplanes started end up collecting dust and those that are finished must overcome the challenges of complicated plans, the need for special tools and thousands of hours of labor with little or no manufacturer support. Nicol believes that a more community-oriented design approach will overcome many of these obstacles. Israel-based aeronautical engineer Jeffrey Meyer is leading the MakerPlane charge to develop a safe, inexpensive kitplane that can be built at home or at a 'makerspace' through the efforts of people volunteering their efforts and ideas. MakerPlane intends to make the plans and avionics software for the plane available for free, but will sell parts and support services to fund the project."
There's a group called the Experimental Aviation Organization. They have a whole bunch of local chapters full of people who are obnoxiously willing to help you build an airplane. There are dozens of kitplane manufacturers out, including my favorite Airdrome Aeroplanes which has an awesome kit for building a replica (full size or scale) of the Red Baron's DR-1 among others. The build time is on the order of 400 hours, vice 2000-3000 for the modern composite designs, and this design needs no tools beyond those from Harbor Freight.
Enjoy
Nothing you listed is a problem. Of course there are requirements and costs for getting a pilots license. As for building your own, that is allowed in most countries of the free world. In the US about 1/4 of all piston powered aircraft are kits or homebuilt. You don't get to fly it until an FAA examiner goes over your paperwork (you must document the construction process to some extent), checks out your plane, and issues an airworthiness certificate so you can begin testing. You don't get a normal type certificate because it is a one-of-a-kind since building it in your garage is not a certified process. Only after the required testing period can you use the plane as normal, and you are free to use it the same as a Cessna except for commercial operations.
;-)
Should you manage to build something out of a garbage can that's under 254 pounds that carries no more than 5 gallons of fuel, meets a minimum stall speed and maximum cruize speed, you can legally fly it as an ultralight without a license in the US as well - the specs are different in other places. I do recommend some training though, and leaving design to professionals
Home building is where aviation started, and it's alive and well.
Hopefully it wont slow them down because none of it is true, just your own personal assumptions, which are, thankfully, pretty much all false. It is different for different countries... but you mention the FAA, so I assume that you think that you're commenting on how it is in the USA... but that said...
1) anyone can make a plane if they have the skill and the knowledge, and nobody would bother them. it happens all the time, it's happening right now all over the country by aircraft enthusiasts.
2) you don't have to alert authorities about it at all, and it does NOT need to be certified by the FAA if it's under weight guidelines.
3) it's perfectly legal to fly whatever you want, whenever you want as long as you keep it under weight specifications for "ultra-light" aircraft. Seriously, if you lack the skills to build, you can go buy an ultra-light, find some dude who can fly to teach you to fly it... and fly it whenever you want, all legally, all without telling any authority or regulating body. You can actually make an ultralight that can carry a passenger and nobody will bother you.
The most hilarious part of the post is "I wont even go into the requirements" because it's pretty clear that you don't even remotely know what they are let alone well enough to "go over them". Seriously, anyone (at least in the USA) can make a plane and go fly it whenever they want as long as it meets the rules for ultralights. You don't need a license, you don't need to tell a soul and it's still perfectly legal. It's recommended that if you build a plane that you get proper training and have your plane looked over by an engineer, but that's only because people in general don't want others to hurt themselves and give a bad name to aviation. But anyone telling you that you can't do this has no clue about what they're talking about.
So bad was the ignorance of your post that you failed to bring up the most basic of sources that would inform you about ultralight aviation...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultralight_aviation
It's actually pretty cool that it's still legal for people to be able to commit and risk their own lives in the pursuit of invention and flying machines just like it was 1900. ...wikipedia, it's a pretty cool resource to check things before you say dumb things on the internet.