Amateur-built and experimental aircraft - Australian Transport Safety ...

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GAS General Aviation Survey GAAS General Aviation Activity Survey GFA Gliding Federation of Australia HORSCOTS House of Representatives Standing Committee on Transport Safety IAS Indicated airspeed IFR Instrument flight rules KG/M 2 KTS Knots Kilograms per metre-squared LAME Licensed aircraft maintenance engineer MTOW Maximum permissible take-off weight MPP Manual pitch propeller NA Not applicable NTSB National Transport Safety Bureau NVFR Night visual flight rules PDF Portable document file PFA Popular Flying Association (United Kingdom) POH Pilot operating handbook PPL Private pilot licence RPM Revolutions per minute RU Retractable undercarriage SAOG Sport Aircraft Operations Group SAAA Sport Aircraft Association of Australia STOL Short take-off and landing ULAAA Ultra Light Aircraft Association of Australia URL Uniform resource locator US United States of America VFR Visual flight rules VMC Visual meteorological conditions VPP Variable propeller pitch control - x -
1 INTRODUCTION In the last three decades, both in Australia and overseas, there has been significant growth in the number of amateur-built and experimental (ABE) aircraft. The nature of amateur-built aircraft has changed significantly since 1955, when the Ultra Light Aircraft Association of Australia (ULAAA) was formed. By modern standards, most early aircraft would be classified as ultralights 1 (Rogers, 1978), a term that embodied amateur-built aircraft until 1998. Today, ABE aircraft may include twin engine, jet-powered, high performance aircraft, and carry up to six people. This moves beyond the traditional scope of ultralights. Amateur-built and experimental aircraft continue to become more popular and cement their role as an integral part of general aviation (GA) in Australia and overseas, but there has been little formal study of ABE aircraft and their owners worldwide, and no formal study of amateur-built aircraft owners in Australia. Operational and demographic data on ABE aircraft is largely incomplete in comparison to data held for other types of aircraft. This report is Part 1 of a two-part series that examines non-factory amateur-built and experimental aircraft in Australia. It looks at the ABE aircraft community, including pilots and their aircraft, regulatory changes, and growth and development of aircraft associations over time. Data for this report was gathered using a survey sent to owners and builders of flying VH-registered ABE aircraft. This report will allow aviation regulators and ABE associations to better understand the needs and activities of ABE aircraft designers, builders, operators and maintainers. This, in turn, will help to foster a safe, highly-skilled, and wellrepresented amateur-built aircraft community. The demand for new low-cost aircraft in GA may be partially met by ABE aircraft. Better information on the decision processes used by ABE aircraft owners when selecting, buying, building, testing, transitioning to, operating, and maintaining their aircraft, will help to inform people thinking about becoming involved in this progressive area of aviation. The results of this report will also be used to provide context for the study of ABE safety trends and issues in Part 2 of this series. 1.1 Background 1.1.1 What are amateur-built and experimental aircraft? Amateur-built aircraft are referred to in many different ways: home-built, kit planes, amateur, experimental, plans-built, ultralight, and non factory-built aircraft. In general, amateur-built aircraft are: • built from an original design, established plans or kit • for personal use • not built in a factory or on a production line (i.e. built solely for the builder’s own education or recreation). 1 An ultralight is a small single engine, single seat aircraft, with a low stall speed and limited engine horsepower. - 1 -
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Page 44 and 45: 3.2 Respondents 3.2.1 Age The ABE a
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Figure 38: Aircraft airframe hours
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Figure 39: Build and operating cert
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Figure 41: Rating of personal satis
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In relation to ability to customise
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Figure 46: Rating of the ability to
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Figure 48: Number of aircraft built
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According to build hours data for a
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Table 6: Aircraft modifications wit
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engine, fuel system, avionics, hydr
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challenging (χ 2 = 2.89, p = 0.09,
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associated with building an aircraf
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people built aircraft by 41 differe
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Figure 68: Rating of other aircraft
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Figure 71: Rating of regulator as a
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flew more or much more than usual.
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Figure 75: Mean rating of test flig
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LAMEs as a test flight resource Fig
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another pilot, 46 of 268 used a qua
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Emergency procedures. Two people ma
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3.7 Aircraft building cost Total ai
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Figure 87: Nice-to-have documents o
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Where people undertook transition t
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Table 8: Private versus all other s
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Table 13: Transition training by se
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must be endorsed under CAO 40.1.0 t
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3.9.5 When transition training was
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As pointed out in An Overview of Hu
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Amateur-built and experimental airc
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Figure 98: Engine maintenance multi
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About half the respondents spent be
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Cessna Aircraft Company. (2009). Sk
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National Transport Safety Bureau. (
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APPENDIX B: SURVEY - 118 -
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APPENDIX C: TABLES OF RESPONSES Bui
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Table 27: Maiden flight by transiti
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Amateur-built and experimental airc
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