I'm definitely going to put liability on it. I can afford to lose the plane, but unknown liability is too much risk.

I'm not sure who's going to do the first flight but it probably won't be me. Randy Schlitter (Randy is the RAN'S in RANS) said he might do it, but he's been non-committal which is fair since I don't have a date yet. It would be easy for me to fly the Bonanza out to Hays bring him back for the first flight, then take him home. I have another very experienced TW pilot + instructor who says he'd like to do it. That would be fine with me, he is clearly well-qualified.

Depending on how things go in Salt Lake with the training, I might like to do it myself. However, SWMBO is not on board with that plan. I really have no idea how hard it is going to be for me to transition to a tailwheel. It sounds like getting good at it is a journey, but in zero to light wind it's not that tough. I'm keeping an open mind and I'm trying to stay humble about it.

The plane is at KOJC which has a paved runway and a tower. The T-Hangar is only 1000' from my house, so it really didn't make sense to finish the project anywhere else. That's where the plane is going to live so paved runways are going to be part of it.

However, I've worked with the FSDO representative who is going to do the inspection and we've settled on the area where I will fly the 40 hours and do the testing. There are 4 or 5 grass strips in the area and that's where I expect to spend most of my time.

Update:

For those interested and following the progress, I thought I'd post an update. There seem to be quite a lot of you and I appreciate the support.

The paperwork SNAFU I alluded to earlier appears to have no easy remedy. Here is what I did wrong: On the original application for registration I put down the wrong serial number for the RANS kit which becomes the aircraft serial number. It's off by one digit on the 8050-1 Registration Application and the 8050-88 Affidavit of Ownership. These are the forms that get sent to Oklahoma City, there is no way to do this online. The 8050-1 is the same form you send in when you buy an airplane.



I don't know how I managed to foul this up, the EAA Certification Guide makes a point warning you about the accuracy of these initial forms because they are not easy to fix. I thought I checked them over carefully, but apparently, I wasn't careful enough.

I've tried to find an easier way to fix it short of sending the correct documents back into the Ok City black hole. I've talked to Aerotitle in Oklahoma City, and this is one of the few problems they can't help with. I've talked to the examiner from the FSDO who will be doing the inspection and he says there is nothing he can do. All the numbers have to match or it's dead in the water. I called Ok City where I waited on hold for 45 minutes and eventually talked to a nice guy who said the only surefire way to fix it is to resubmit the corrected forms through the mail along with a cover letter explaining that the only problem is the serial number. So that's what I've done. It could go on top of the pile and be done in a month, or it could go on the bottom and take six. So it's frustrating and depressing, but that's where it stands.

In the meantime, I'm headed to Salt Lake next week to get my tailwheel endorsement and 10 hours in an S7. I was scheduled to go this week, but they've had terrible weather out there. Next week looks cold but nice. I'm excited to get to fly one of these things even if it's not the one I built.

If anyone has ideas on how to fix this serial number problem short of waiting for the paper to propagate through the byzantine maze of Oklahoma City please let me know.

Just my take from being a fairly new TW pilot. Insurance for a Cessna 120 is double that of a 150, only difference is little wheel on back.
My experience is the difference is 100% justified. With thousands of hours, but zero TW, a friend let me takeoff in his S7 on a wide grass runway. I thought it’d be a piece of cake, I nearly took out a couple runway lights.
Fast forward to me having a few hundred hours TW time. I Let my very experience Mooney pilot friend do a takeoff on same grass runaway In my 120, I had to grab the controls.
After all that effort, years of building, IMHO, I would put full coverage on for the first year and see how you feel after that.
Sorry to hear of the paperwork snafu, that sucks. It should be something able to correct with a phone call, but that’s giant bureaucracy.

Greg

This will one day be behind you and another story to tell. Keep us updated on your progress.

I'm still in a holding pattern waiting for the FAA to fix my paperwork SNAFU, but in the meantime, I headed out to West Desert Airpark last week and got my TW endorsement. West Desert Flight has a LODA for instruction in their S7S, I think it's the only one in the country you can rent and take lessons in.

I took off Wednesday morning in my Bonanza for the 850NM flight. I had decent weather but a stiff headwind making for a 5.5-hour flight. I arrived at West Desert at about 12:30 and was met on the ramp by Matthew Kalm my instructor. We jumped right into it with ground school and managed to get in an hour-and-a-half flight in the S7 before it got dark.

Thursday and Friday we had good weather and light winds. We got in a lot of flying, as much as I could take before getting too tuckered out to keep learning. One more hour Saturday morning and Matthew signed off my tail wheel endorsement and I headed home to Kansas City. Total of 11 hours in the S7.

I have to say it was harder than I thought it would be. I've got nearly 5000 hours, mostly in a Bonanza, and I think I'm a pretty good pilot. But this lightweight tail wheel stuff is a different kinda animal. Lots of new skills were needed, and bad habits un-learned; my uptake was pretty slow. I can land an S7 now, but I've got a ways to go before I'd call myself competent.

Matthew did a great job working with me and remained patient as I made the same F-ups over and over.

I flew back Saturday afternoon during what has to be one of the best weather windows in a long time. High pressure the whole way, not a cloud in the sky and excellent visibility.

Now the tail wheel endorsement box is checked off, I just need to get that serial number problem fixed and I should be ready to go. I'm still going to have someone else make the first flight, and I'll probably bring along a TW instructor for a while until I've got a better handle on landing.

That's wonderful news Jack. Do you feel like the tail-wheel lessons improved your bonanza landings? Many people do, including me.
Dave

The struts, nose wheel, and over-the-nose view of the Bo really make us all look better than we are.

A stout, heavy nosedragger will mask all manner of sins and still make us look good, while a light taildragger will amplify each of those sins and make us feel like fools.

I admire the lengths you're going to (literally) to make sure you're ready to fly your new plane well. I suspect that there will be a moment around your 100th landing that you start to really feel like you're getting it.

I thought that the Bonanza was the easiest airplane to land (and ruin your pilot skills) until I started flying a friend’s RV-10.
Tailwheel experience is the best thing any pilot can learn to hone their skills.

It's hard to say. I've only landed the Bonanza twice since the TW training. I've been flying the Bonanza so long that I'm got that pretty well in hand. If the TW flying improves the Bonanza flying it will probably take a while to detect it. Right now the Bonanza feels like putting on a comfortable old pair of shoes after the S7.

When I was building, I was told that I could use any serial number I wanted - it did NOT have to match the kit serial number. In the eyes of the FAA, you are building a "Jackson Letts RANS S-7," not a "RANS S-7." They consider every experimental-AB to be unique.

In other words, you can make the serial number of your plane match the records at the FAA. Your plane can be serial number 1, or 2, or 0318630.

I'm not sure how far down the road you are in the other direction, but that's an option.

Same here. I built a Zenith 701 and the serial number was 001 because it was the first Mueller 701. I built a Onex and it also was serial number 001 even though the plans serial number was 180.

However if you sent one form in with one serial number and you sent another form in with a different serial number then you have entered the pits of FAA hell.

Jim

That's correct, I could have made the serial number something else entirely. Here is the problem: RANS makes their serial numbers sequential. I put down 0318630 when it should have been 0318639. Since they are sequential there is another kit out there that has 0318630. Apparently, I finished my build first since the "0" number was available, but presumably, that kit will get finished, that builder will use his correct kit serial number, and it would probably kick back on that guy since it would have been taken by me.

I talked to RANS about it and they strongly encouraged me to fix it. All their internal documentation refers back to the serial number. Welding inspections, heat treatment documents, powder coating, and on and on. While I could have changed all the other paperwork to match the incorrect number that I registered it under, RANS said it would be a "Dick move". I have to agree.

If I had made a mistake that didn't actually coincide with another kit serial number, I would have just changed all the other paperwork to match and gone on down the road. But the way the numbers work, I can't actually do that in good conscience.

There's a fair chance that when that builder finishes, he or she might register it as "Smith S-7S 0318630," which, in the eyes of the FAA, is distinct from the "Letts S-7S 0318630" (or however exactly you registered yours).


Searching experimental amateur-built aircraft in the FAA registry is interesting. There are a lot of fragments of kit manufacturer names, proper trade names, and even bits of certificated names, such as the odd "Jones IO-360" engine. I get the idea that most builders try to be at least a little descriptive, that is the naming isn't all personal satisfaction and pride in a job well done.