Curious, have you actually sat down with tort lawyers? What about trial attorneys?
Because, the few I have sat down with disagree with you.
The standard contract you see for selling a certified aircraft is "as is"; compliance has no meaning. Further, damage is usually limited to the value of the plane or unwinding the sale; the court cases are quick and legal fees in the grand scheme of things is minimal.
The standard contact for experimental attempts to limit liability. However, the few attorneys I showed a copy of the AOPA and EAA contracts flatly stated the experimental has significant legal cost risk to defend yourself. The risk of actual damages is pretty low, one thought driving a car had higher legal risk of a successful suit. However, the legal costs to win; are very expensive.

To give two examples; I had an employee wrongfully sued by a former employer who had more cash than brains; because he was working on a project I assigned him we decided to cover the legal fees. Over two years as it went through the courts we spent 250K to get a summary judgement which was upheld on appeal.

A second example, a software company where I was listed as a possible expert witness (I know the owner); was being sued for liability and loss of revenue from a much larger competitor. $350K in legal fees latter, the case was thrown out.

In both cases, we leaned extensively on friends who are lawyers to lower the costs. We would take a long lunch with lawyer friends to explain a lot of the items; help us gather and provide information to the trial attorneys. Lunch is much cheaper than an hour or two of a trial attorneys time. If I did not have these connections, I kind of shudder at what the costs would be.

As for the rest of your comments; I am glad you enjoy building.

Tim

Tim,

In most cases, wouldn't your home owners liability insurer step in and cover the cost of the litigation?

Nope. The umbrella in home owners clauses is rather limited.

Tim

Nope. The umbrella in home owners clauses is rather limited.

Tim

I disagree completely. The combination of having your name listed as the manufacturer of the airplane and a person with enough assets to make their pursuit worth the effort is what scares people off when it comes time to sell the airplane. Selling a certified aircraft that has documentation showing it's been maintained per FAA requirements just doesn't pose the same risk IMO. Nor would selling an amateur built airplane with someone else's name on the type certificate.



I do agree that plenty of homebuilders have taken that risk without a loss but like Tim I'd like to see how many with an attachable net worth in the 7 figure range have done so and how many of those that sold an airplane that crashed and killed someone were threatened with a lawsuit as a result.

Again, I respect your fear of being sued, but the facts publicly available don't support your position. This is especially true regarding the Raptor considering the numerous naysayers here that have repeatedly stated the thing will never fly, let alone be built and eventually sold. You've understated the risk of selling your certified airplane and overstated the experimental based solely on the available data of successful liability lawsuits - in that there have been successful suits for certified aircraft and none known for experimental. It's experimental - and openly fraught with potential failure; any buyer of that aircraft thinking otherwise should not be flying. How you could think anything other than that is unknown to me. We'll just have to agree to disagree on this.

If you're really concerned about liability, owner/builder liability as the result of selling an experimental airplane pales in comparison to crashing your airplane with passengers into a populated shopping mall (google SunValley Mall and Cessna). That is a significantly greater and more realistic liability that routinely results in very large, successfully won lawsuits - yet pilots load up and fly over populated areas every day without a thought about it.

Everything has risk in life - even getting out of bed; you just need to use good risk management. In the case of selling an E-AB aircraft, a solid sales agreement that clearly states the nature of the aircraft has been extremely successful for over 60 years - with NO successful liability lawsuits. I believe you've significantly overstate the E-AB risk based on evidence, other than a stated fear.

Actually no. I have said the cost of defending a lawsuit is enough to scare away people.
Here is another statistic that is kinda scary.
Try getting one million smooth on any experimental outside of an RV. For the RV, try getting it on a RV10.
Now try for two million, or three million.

Guess what, the insurance is/was not available. And basic insurance to get on most public use airports of $500K with $100K sub limits is rather expensive.

Tim

FWIW - $1M smooth can be had on a RV10 for about $2400/yr for a "normal" ~1K hour IR pilot.

I have had 1MM smooth on a Zenith 601XL that I sold and currently have it on my RV-12 valued at $90,000 for a total cost of $836 at the last renewal; 1MM sub-limited was available for $610. I have the same coverage quoted for my soon to be completed RV-10 with $150,000 hull coverage at $2160 annually.

I get an additional $2MM coverage for a total of $3MM at $3180 per year currently. This is a continuation of my coverage required by my employer on my Baron for work up until recently when I sold it, however, I intend to continue using my experimental airplane for my business and personal travel.

It sounds like you may have had difficultly with insurance, Tim, but that has not been my experience. I can imagine that fear of the unknown is a detractor, but liability and insurance issues have not been my experience with experimental aviation.

I have had 1MM smooth on a Zenith 601XL that I sold and currently have it on my RV-12 valued at $90,000 for a total cost of $836 at the last renewal; 1MM sub-limited was available for $610. I have the same coverage quoted for my soon to be completed RV-10 with $150,000 hull coverage at $2160 annually.

I get an additional $2MM coverage for a total of $3MM at $3180 per year currently. This is a continuation of my coverage required by my employer on my Baron for work up until recently when I sold it, however, I intend to continue using my experimental airplane for my business and personal travel.

It sounds like you may have had difficultly with insurance, Tim, but that has not been my experience. I can imagine that fear of the unknown is a detractor, but liability and insurance issues have not been my experience with experimental aviation.

Wow. Just watched that video. Three dollar brass valve on the fuel line, cheap fuel hoses on barbed fittings with what looks like Walmart worm clamps, cheap ass crimped on wire terminals, on and on and on.
No way in hell would I fly in that thing! I can only guess on the quality of the pressure vessel and other wiring and plumbing.
For his sake I hope someone looks this thing over and gives him some pointers before he kills himself.
I admire his ambition, but he desperately needs some professional assistance.

That sums up the project.

Such effort and ambition wasted for the lack of some guidance. It could have been directed to something far more viable and worthwhile.

Like I said, I hope he fails before he kills himself.

Mike C.

Its not looking like he will fail before this thing fly's or at least attempts to fly. They continue to make steady progress. First flight possible this month.

https://medium.com/@RaptorAircraft/that ... f45cee3e83

Uh-oh. Dose of reality from his intended test pilot. Two aerodynamic issues and the entirely single-channel, single point of failure electronic engine control.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSAC5EAe2HI
His discussion of how he ended up with the Audi engine (his 3rd choice) was most enlightening. TL;DR, his first choice aero engines were realistic but nobody was interested because it was no better than existing airplanes. So he chose the Audi because it made the concept sell, hoping/expecting that it could be made realistic over time.
He says he got $2.7 million of customer money and it sounds like there's not much left.

Not renewing that lease, this guy is done. If they have so much confidence in the engine with the single ECM and get a thumbs up from an independent aerospace engineer on the aerodynamic questions, why don’t they take it up? They have a parachute.......