90% done and 90% to go, as they say....

And you may not meet the 51% rule.

And you may not meet the 51% rule.

He's right; you, personally, might not meet the 51% rule in terms of getting the Repairman's Certificate.

The repairman's certificate has nothing to do with the 51% rule. The "51% rule" is to get the airworthiness certificate for an amateur built experimental (I.E. what makes it an airplane instead of a a collection of parts). Look it up!

If you build all of it, you're eligible for the Repairman's Certificate. If you build none of it, you're not. In between, you might or might not. You're focussing on the term "51% Rule," which isn't exactly what Chris meant, but it's close enough that his point was clear.

So, ignoring the precisely defined 51% Rule, the point is this: If you buy a kit that someone else partially completed, you might not be eligible for a Repairman's Certificate.

Is that sufficiently specific?

Are you now speaking for Chris? Why do you assume that is what he meant, when it is not what he wrote?

The literal interpretation of what he said is that if you buy a partially completed kit, it might be worthless because you might not get an AEB airworthiness certificate for it, meaning it might never be a legal airplane.

Why are you hung up on the repairman's certificate? Really, who gives a crap if you get the repairman's certificate or not? It saves you from paying an A&P a few hundred bucks once a year. It's a drop in the bucket as far as aviation costs go.

Oh, fer cryin' out loud.

I would want the repairmans cert if I built the plane, but otherwise could care less. You only need it to sign off condition inspections which can be done for a few hundred bucks anyway.

Shifting a bit......

What about fiberglass work? Is it tough to find someone to do fiberglass repairs?

We talk on BT as if Bonanzas are something rare and exotic, and only a few highly specialized A&Ps are able to work on them without killing us. But there are a million of them. How hard is it to find someone who knows one end of a White Lightning from the other?

I can do my own fiberglass work; although, it would probably not be needed. If you look at a plane like a Velocity, Glasair, etc you will find there is not much to them. The shop I am buying the Glasair from is going to prepare my A&P and I for anything that comes up. There just is not much to fail - landing gear actuator seals is about the most common. Everything else is pretty simple. The gear runs like a Piper. Hydraulic pressure makes it move. Has an independent hydraulic resevoir and circuit to pump the gear down manually as well.

If I built one I would build it from the ground up, no partially built ones.

My reasoning is that I like knowing that it was done right. As it has been pointed out, it doesn't really have to be done right for it to be signed off, just no glaring errors. Being the somewhat anal guy I am, I would insist on doing everything. The thought of someone screwing something up or doing it differently than I would have doesn't settle well.

I realize that my reasoning may be flawed, but the idea of doing it yourself adds a bit of certainty at least to me.

So how do I convince the wife to let me sell the Piper, buy a Bonanza, and start an RV-10 build. . . . . . Better to ask forgiveness than permission I suppose.

In all seriousness, I think that these birds may be the future of GA and the only possible saving idea is PNC. Even that has a downside I don't think you can buy a brand new plane for 120k + your time. If you can, let me know. 120k for something that you know intimately, that hasn't been fatigued, that you can do any work to it that you want, that you define the parameters, even install a cirrus style chute system in it. . . .

Being a man out of my generation, I am just as nostalgic about Bonanza's as the next Beechbum, but as people keep hurting them, there become fewer of them for the rest of us to buy. One day the supply will run out. Nothing will replace them, that's for sure, but if we are being honest, comparing a 1960's or 50's Bo for that matter against a brand new RV-10 is disingenuous.

Are you now speaking for Chris? Why do you assume that is what he meant, when it is not what he wrote?

The literal interpretation of what he said is that if you buy a partially completed kit, it might be worthless because you might not get an AEB airworthiness certificate for it, meaning it might never be a legal airplane.

Why are you hung up on the repairman's certificate? Really, who gives a crap if you get the repairman's certificate or not? It saves you from paying an A&P a few hundred bucks once a year. It's a drop in the bucket as far as aviation costs go.

OK.....lets revisit the definition of "partially" completed....

A friend of mine worked on his RV10 empenage kit for a year or so, then gave up and bought a Cirrus. The Cirrus probably cost less than the RV10 would have. I think I'd rather have an RV10 than a Cirrus.