Yeah, this is a good topic because of that damn hindsight
thing!
I already listed the one thing about the overhead crane or engine
hoist, but on another more practical note. I got my airplane in the air in
3 years from knowing nothing about airplanes to choosing a kit, building
(not a quickbuild), designing and building an alternative engine FWF to
first flight, then learning to fly.
It was all great fun at home in my shop where I could
work on it every spare minute. There was many very late nights where the
creativity was coming fast and furious and lots of times I'd wake up in
the middle of the night with a great idea and head to the shop.
Then I was in a hurry to move it to the airport. I hated
working on it out there. I could go on with a long list of reasons why,
but it was hard to continue experimenting with it out there and I started
regretting doing some things that I was otherwise glad that I tried. I
tried to deny this to myself and stay excited and positive about it
all.
By the time that I took it home 2 years later, I was
not really interested in dealing with it. And since we had just bought the
land across the road, I had a new shop to build, barns to build, a kid to
raise and a thousand other distractions, so that it took till now to get
interested again.
Fortunately, my wife only once made mention of selling
it, but from my reaction never mentioned it again, but I can see how so
many projects get abandoned at this point.
So from that, what would I do differently? Hard to be sure
since I didn't have the flight experience to make some different choices,
but even an extra year in the shop going at a little slower pace wouldn't
have hurt. That old saying about if you don't have time to do it right the
first time, then when are you going to find time to do it the second time,
is even harder when you are no longer in your well equipped shop while
doing it the second time. Now it's not like the workmanship is bad, when I
say about doing it right, but rather if some of our design choices are
constrained by the amount of work involved. Now I would rather do an
almost unreasonable amount of work in the comfort of my shop than almost
anything in the field. I really enjoy building at home, but when it's not
at home I just want to fly it.
Previously I would cling to questionable half-baked
ideas because of the time and money that I'd invested in it. That's not to
say that half-baked ideas are all bad, but now I'll be far more likely to
move on and try something else regardless of time and money investment if
I don't feel good about something.
So when you're considering something like relocating a
cooler and are certain that it would improve performance but don't want to
to do the work involved, just do it when you're still in a well equipped
and convenient work space.
And all you lucky SOB's that have an airstrip and hangar
at home, you can disregard this advice.
I could fill several more posts about more specific items that I'd do
differently but this was really the big picture and once again it may seem
obvious to many but that has been my experience.
Todd Bartrim
RV9 13Bturbo
Ps. I often get asked about how many hours are involved in building
this plane. I just laugh and say I don't know or care. It doesn't
matter.
George started us on a good
topic. Building an airplane is an expensive and labor intensive
process. I've made many decisions where I didn't really like
something, but liked the prospect of the time and expense to change it
even less. Those things don't tend to get as much coverage in
discussions as what was actually done, even though there is a real lesson
in what the person who just did something wishes they'd done
differently.
This thread could be
renamed "What I'd done differently"
Another good one would be
"What I'd do
again"