Kit Airplanes Go Far Beyond The Prolific Van's Aircraft

By: Tom Woodward

When you make your first trip to EAA’s AirVenture at Oshkosh, Wisconsin ... or what the "Old Timer’s" just call “Oshkosh” ... you expect to see experimental airplanes. What you will likely be inundated with is acres of Van’s RV’s parked in their own area like Flamingos in a Florida marsh. There are RV 3’s, 4’s, 6’s and 7’s, 8’s, 9’s, 10’s, 12’s, and 14’s and who knows what Van’s will be offering this year? They are by far the most popular experimental airplane offered on the market today. They are well marketed, have excellent performance in all flight regimes and are some of the easiest experimental to build with excellent construction manuals and precise parts that are packaged to be easy to locate.

But Oshkosh is about innovation and experimentation and though you’ll only find a handful of one-off homebuilts any more you will find several, less popular kits that can hold their own in performance and/or utility.

During the week I will highlight several of the less mass-produced kits that have been built or are still offered for sale. I’ll point what their owners think their appeal is, why I think they haven’t sold the numbers that Van’s has and give you an idea of how they fly and what missions they serve. Several have better performance than the RV’s series, some take longer to build, and several are more expensive but with as many RV’s as there are you might be looking for something that the guy in the next hangar doesn’t have. Some of the kits I will cover are the;

• Falco F.8L
• Turbine legend
• SX-300

These airplanes have a special purpose but offer outstanding performance for what they aim to achieve. Might one of these be in your future?

FMI: www.falcoaircraft.org, www.venomaircraft.com, www.sx300group.org