Homebuilt Aircraft

Also called amateur-built aircraft or kit planes, aircraft built by people for whom aviation is not a profession, whether built from scratch, from published plans, or from assembly kits; in the United States and several other countries they can be licensed in the Experimental category provided they are built for the builder's own education and recreation rather than for profit, and a primary builder in the United States can earn a repairman's certificate allowing most of the aircraft's own maintenance, repair and inspection to be signed off by the builder. Alberto Santos-Dumont was the first to give away construction plans, publishing his Demoiselle design in Popular Mechanics in June 1910, and the Baby Ace became the first aircraft sold as plans in the late 1920s; homebuilding grew after the 1924 National Air Races in Dayton, Ohio, but a run of accidents between 1929 and 1933 brought federal regulation that largely ended amateur building outside racing until the United States and Canada again permitted it under specific standards by the mid-1950s. Most homebuilts today are small, one to four seat sportplanes built from wood and fabric, metal or composites, and while most use certified aircraft engines, some builders convert automobile or motorcycle engines instead to hold down cost.