Can you convert certified plane to experimental

My plan is to get the full license. The color blind thing throws me for a loop. Had a pilot tell me I could never fly at night, and I would be very restricted...

 

IMHO it depends on what you want to do and if you like high wing or low wing. As far as wing position I don't care, I have flown both and the have advantages and disadvantages of both. Both have about the same useful load, both are just 2 person aircraft. Price is close to the same for the plane and maintenance, the Ercoupe will probably be faster by a few MPH.

 

Color Blindness - Me, nope I can't pass the tower light test and I have tried with my CFI with me. Can I see stop lights on the road yes, but that is a different shade of red and a lot closer than the tower at the distance needed to be seen. I failed every color vision test there is. Why bother when I know I will not have the option of flying at night. Also the PAPI lights I can only see if the sun is at the right angles and the lights are newer. I have been to several airports I can't ever see when the change.

Basic Med only works after you pass your first 3rd class medical or higher, you can't start with basic med. When I got sport, it was because of Migraines, which I still get. They have changed the Migraine requirement and an AME can now sign off on it. But again after already having my sport pilot cert, why go back for the additional few hours of training and another check ride cost, when I already have a plane that fits my mission and is paid for.

 

Found a you tube video with the light test...

That's pretty simple if thats it... I can easily see red, green, white...

 

Yes, like I said, it's very easy.

As a friend of mine, who also had the waiver, pointed out-- in those tests of color vision, they intentionally make it difficult. In the case of the light signals, they want to make them as easily distinguishable as possible!

 

I'll disagree on the 'not saving money' aspect. Half of the time of an annual inspection is spent R&R inspection plates and other items (cowling and interior). Another hr or two doing things already permitted under Part 43, such as lubing joints and changing other fluids. The actual inspection by an IA takes a couple hrs max on the physical airplane and then another couple on paperwork. The trick is finding an A&P/IA who will only charge you for the work they actually perform.

 

I think if you ask most IAs if an owner-assisted annual requires more or less of their time, they'll tell you more. But there are always exceptions, especially when the owner has a lot of wrench-turning experience and a long relationship with the IA.

 

I'll disagree, or maybe I was just one of those exceptions.

Agree regarding a long term relationship with an IA. A first inspection of a particular aircraft will always take longer just due to paperwork, e.g. AD search and log book reviews. Subsequent inspections, by the same IA, should take much less time especially if they are the primary maintenance provider for the aircraft. Further any IA who requires performing anything beyond what is defined by 14CFR Part 43 SecD43.1 is going beyond an annual inspection. Of course there are certain things that make sense to perform when an airplane is fully 'opened up', but changing consumables is NOT part of an annual inspection. Aircraft maintenance is much like exotic car maintenance, with a need to retain someone who has specific knowledge of the particular vehicle.

 

Bo, I'm going to save you some time here. You're a professional with side businesses and kids. You don't have time to rebuild an airplane. You're not going to be satisfied with an LSA or any other small airplane for long. You're going to want to move up. Go buy yourself a clean 172, something you can get out of quickly, a 70's to early 80's model for under $50k. You can fly your family of four in it (not very far due to useful load constraints) to see if they're on board. Get your PPL, then your instrument rating. After that you'll have a pretty good idea where you want to go with this. You might go in the direction of a SR22 or a Bonanza if bigger, farther, faster is the objective, or you might buy a Carbon Cub or Kitfox if recreation is the objective.

I've been reading your posts for years, we're a lot alike. My guess is you're going to move up to bigger, farther, faster. I forget where you said the kids are going to college, but they'll move and you'll want to visit them. I think you're wanting to get into aviation because you want to FLY, not tinker endlessly on the ground with some POS.

 

I agree 100%... I think a Cessna 172 or basic bonanza would do it.

I live near Kenosha Wisconsin, kids going to Madison. Madison has 3 small airports, Racine/Kenosha have 2 small airports.

Its a 1:45 minute drive...

Figured it would be a great excuse to go flying, and I would have someplace to go every weekend...

Wife, is ok with my getting a plane, not so keen on getting in it... One of my kids also expressed an interest in flying...

The interest in the LSA would be to rack up some hours the first year, to get the hang of things. From what I gather, a 150 is dirt cheap, and so is maintenance.

As a youngin' I would love to have built my own plane. At this age, no way I can get 1500 spare hours together. I still have a 930 motor 50% back together...

I may need to just sell the testarossa, which hardly gets used, to fund the new toy...

 

This is one of those instances where rational thinking must be suspended.

Flying will take (all estimates and likely un-conservative)
15 min to get to the airport
30 min (minimum) to prep and be lined up on the runway for TO
30-45 min flight
30 min to secure the plane and get to ground transportation
15 min drive from airport to destination
---> >2 hr, but way more fun

 

The airplane market is pretty efficient and values are all based on utility. The reason a 150 is cheap is because you can't put anyone in it and go somewhere. You can barely get yourself and an instructor in it with enough fuel for a one hour training session.

A 172 will allow you to fly your family of four back and forth to visit/pickup/dropoff the kids from college. You'll probably be looking at about a 45minute flight time. By the time you add in the time spent preflighting in and out of cars etc. it will be a wash with drive time, but the view is infinitely better. The fuel cost won't be too different from an SUV. A Bonanza will do this mission with ease and will be much more capable, but it is more complex meaning that your training will take longer and you will be prolonging the end game of flying your family/friends anywhere (you can't fly with passengers as a student pilot). It will also cost a lot more than the 172 to acquire and feed (fuel, maintenance, insurance). There is a reason the 172 has been ubiquitous with training pilots for over 50 years.

The other piece of advice I'll give you is to carve out set training time and stay with it until completed. Lots of would be pilots start training and then life gets in the way and then they pick it up later, but not where they left off, and they never get over the finish line. It's 2 steps forward, 1-1/2 steps back.

Finally, aviation is a great bond between parent and child. My dad became a pilot when I was 2 years old. We've flown together my entire adulthood. If it weren't for aviation we'd hardly have anything to talk about.

 

As someone who has gone through this experience and lived to tell the tale, If you plan on going all the way to an instrument rating, I would absolutely recommend getting the most airplane you can as your first plane.

If you're serious about learning to fly and aircraft ownership, you should consider one of the newer, G1000 based avionics, all composite aircraft like an SR-20/22 or Diamond DA-40. There are a couple others that fit the bill but these two are common, superior in their flight capability, are safe, and easy to fly. You can take either of these aircraft from first flight to instrument. Insurance, something incredibly important in the flying world, is also easily obtained and inexpensive for this type of aircraft, even for low time pilots.

The important thing to keep in mind is you need to define your 90% mission and target an appropriate aircraft for that mission. So if the mission is 2 adults 300 miles, then pretty much any aircraft will fit that mission. If you want to fly four adults 700 miles with 100 lbs. of baggage, much fewer. Define your 90% mission first, then decide on the aircraft, but think long term.

 

No traffic

 

Sort of. Viewing an ADS-B IN display will likely scare the crap out of you. Was so much easier being ignorant of all the traffic flying around I've only flown through that area on IFR flight plans and it wasn't too bad, but it was IFR so there wasn't any VFR traffic flying.

 

For a first plane, would like to keep it reasonable for the acquisition cost. Figured Cessna 172 is about $60-70k...

Hoping to start lessons in a month or so. Local airport uses LSA's (CTLS) to train, rents them out at 90$ and hour wet

 

Ain't that the truth. A year or two I bashed the ADS-B requirement, because I saw it as an uneccessary governmental overreach. I was wrong. Now that I've had it for almost a year, I LOVE ADS-B! The amount of traffic out there is absolutely shocking. I do believe it may have already saved my life on one certain flight when some yahoo was flying around in IMC without an IFR flight plan, not talking to ATC and on a converging course with me.

 

100%

To make it even more simple, rent and go get your PPL. If you get it then start shopping airplanes. If you don’t finish then it doesn’t matter. Easy peasy.

 

There are thousands of almost pilots all over America...guys that bought planes and didn't finish training to fly them, or finished but didn't like flying as much as they thought they might. Rent and get your private and instrument ratings...if you still dig flying after the mountains of crap you need to go through to get those ratings, then shop for a plane...

 

I am glad that I did my flying when things were so simple and I could enjoy just flying without all the BS that goes with flying now. I don't think that I would have made it.

 

A Beechcraft Starship based in Dallas is now listed as an experimental under a different manufacture year and make and model. Now it's a 2013 RNS Aircraft LLC "Enterprise." Categorized as exhibition as well.

https://registry.faa.gov/aircraftinquiry/NNum_Results.aspx?NNumbertxt=903SC

Photos of it as early as 2014 and most recently April 2019.

https://www.airliners.net/search?keywords=N903SC&sortBy=dateAccepted&sortOrder=desc&perPage=36&display=detail

All other Starships have the FAA make and model as Beech 2000 and classified as "standard" rather than experimental. Here is the other one in Dallas.

https://registry.faa.gov/aircraftinquiry/NNum_Results.aspx?NNumbertxt=N723SC

Photos up to 2019 of it: https://www.airliners.net/search?keywords=N723sc&sortBy=dateAccepted&sortOrder=desc&perPage=36&display=detail

 

What's with the Hawker-Siddely 125 listed as the de-registered aircraft?

 

The cancel date is listed as 11/13/2009 for that particular plane registration and the reason listed is exported (to Isle of Man).

Here is that plane when it had that tail #. https://www.opshots.net/gallery2/index.php?page=photos&id=14374

 

I believe owned by an F-Chat member. See the Starship thread.